Test Facility (FPTP), to test fiels and materials which would be used in breeder reactors, af Honford. Construction ofthe PFTF began m 1970 and took twelve years ta complete. The AEC uiso located other projects there, such as the Hanford Contammnent Sestems Experiment, designed to investigate aspects of the safety of ight water reactors. in 1975 the ARC was abolished and the Richland Operations Office became a part of the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA}. Under BRDA the operations office employed 303 personnel io oversee 2272 contractor employees engaged in plutonium production sctisiuies, The anmual bulpet tor this came to about S71 million. In 1977, however, ERDA was abolished and the Richlanw) Cnerations Office became a part ofthe Department of Energy. In 1987, several mouths after the Chernotry! nuclear reactor accident, the New Production Reactor wag shut down. The reactor was similar im design to the Chernobyl reactor and safety concernsled to the shuidown. Afterward, most of the site's resources were devoted to managing the environmental legacy lei by decades ofphuonium production. The Richland Operations Ciive's job was transiormed fom overseeing plutonium production to managing environmental cleanup and waste products. Uf also overseus the research, development, ari commercialization of technologies for waste management, clean-up, and envirormnental restoration. The potential health consequences sssociated with the operation of the complex wag 2 serious concern among many whe live, or have lived, acer the site. As a result, Hanford iz currently involved in several health related studies amd the operations office manages DOE's involvement with these activities. Richland Operations Office Inactive Records: The operations office retains custody of records created as long age as the Warld War 0 Manhattan Project. This means thet i has custody of federal reconds from a murber of operations offices organizations which functioned unier the MED, AEC, ERDA, or DOE. Due to the ABD Hantord diversification program, 1 also bag custody of records from several different contractor organizations, among them Dulont, Crenersl Blectric, and the Hanford Mnvironmental Health Foundation. The operations office generally controls mactive records on the records bow level. Thus, mast finding aids to Richland Operations Office records consist of Inventories of the contents of individual boxes of records. The mventories appear on Records Transter Request forms which ist the organization which created an individual box of records. The forms, however, do not indicate whether the boxes were parts oflarger groupe of records retired at the seme the. Originally many of the records shout site activities were classified. The Richlend Operations Ofiice has now declassified many of tis older documents in response to inigation and to meet other needs. It has placed many of these documents in ite public reading roomy thus much of the contents of the boxes leted on the atteched Records Transfer Request forms may be available in the Richland sublic reading room As scon as the documents are available, they will be linked Lo the Hanford Home Paye at bin/hawhanfordgov/dewreading hom.