Wildlife roam where US once made nuclear and chemical arms

In this Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019 photo, a sign at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation warns of possible hazards in the soil there along the Columbia River near Richland, Wash. Washington state officials are worried that the Trump administration wants to reclassify millions of gallons of wastewater at Hanford from high-level radioactive to low-level, which could reduce cleanup standards and cut costs. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

In this Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019 photo, the Columbia River flows under the Vernita Bridge and past the Hanford Reach National Monument, left, and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, right beyond the bridge, near Richland, Wash. Washington state officials are worried that the Trump administration wants to reclassify millions of gallons of wastewater at Hanford from high-level radioactive to low-level, which could reduce cleanup standards and cut costs. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

In this Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019 photo, an osprey feeds a chick nested atop a platform adjacent to the the Hanford Reach National Monument along the Columbia River near Richland, Wash. A handful of sites where the United States manufactured and tested some of the most lethal weapons known to humankind are now peaceful havens for wildlife, where animals and habitats flourished on obsolete nuclear or chemical weapons complexes because the sites banned the public and most other intrusions for decades. But Hanford, where the cleanup has already cost at least $48 billion and hundreds of billions more are projected, may be the most troubled refuge of all. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

In this Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019 photo, a sign designates a boundary of the Hanford Reach National Monument as the world’s first large scale nuclear reactor, the B Reactor, is seen in the background where it sits unused on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along the Columbia River near Richland, Wash. The Energy Department estimates it will cost between $323 billion and $677 billion more to finish the costliest cleanup, at the Hanford Site in Washington state where the government produced plutonium for bombs and missiles. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

FILE - This Aug. 6, 1945 photo from the Atomic Energy Commission shows one of the production areas at the Hanford Engineer Works, near Pasco in Richland, Wash., where plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, was developed. At Hanford, the cleanup as of 2019 has already cost at least $48 billion and hundreds of billions more are projected. (AEC via AP)

In this Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019 photo, white pelicans take flight over power lines near the Hanford Reach National Monument near Richland, Wash. A handful of sites where the United States manufactured and tested some of the most lethal weapons known to humankind are now peaceful havens for wildlife, where animals and habitats flourished on obsolete nuclear or chemical weapons complexes because the sites banned the public and most other intrusions for decades. But Hanford, where the cleanup has already cost at least $48 billion and hundreds of billions more are projected, may be the most troubled refuge of all. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

DENVER — From a tiny Pacific island to a leafy Indiana forest, a handful of sites where the United States manufactured and tested some of the most lethal weapons known to humankind are now peaceful havens for wildlife.

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