The lime-green water in one of the giant waste water lagoons at the Siemens Power Corp. plant north of Richland is so bright it almost looks like a giant vat of Kool-Aid.

But the mixture hardly is a fruity concoction. The ponds are contaminated with uranium, metallic salt and various chemicals.

So far, plans to get rid of the lagoons are on track at Siemens, which manufactures fuel pellets and assemblies for nuclear power plants. The plant beat three cleanup deadlines last year and is supposed to return the land to a natural state in 2004.

Drying the lagoons isn't anything like handling the highly radioactive wastes from the nearby Hanford Nuclear Reservation. In fact, as radioactive substances go, the water would be barely a blip on the Hanford radar screen.

"The chemicals are more of a concern than the nuclear material,"said Siemens spokesman Wayne Baker.

You can walk right up to the lagoons and look over the side of their gravel berms.

"We treat it like you would any other chemical in that you don't want anyone breathing or ingesting chemicals," said Bernie Femreite, the plant's vice president of manufacturing. "You just don't want to swim in it." The plant has used the lagoons, the largest of which is about half the size of a football field, to collect contaminated water used to turn uranium gas to a powder. From the early 1970s until this year, Siemens mixed the gas with water, then used ammonia to extract uranium powder.

What remained was contaminated water that would be sent to the lagoons, where it could slowly evaporate, leaving any contaminants behind. The five lagoons have capacities of 1 million to 2 million gallons each and can hold water 12 feet deep, though they are kept half full or less so any one of them could be drained if needed.

But Siemens began phasing in a new manufacturing process in October 1997. That process involves combining uranium gas with steam instead of water. It yields the uranium powder and hydrofluoric acid, which can be sold.

More important, the process produces no waste.

"You never generate a liquid waste stream anywhere in the process,"Femreite said.

Since August, Siemens has used what is called the dry conversion process exclusively, which means it will send no more contaminated water to the lagoons.

The company also has opened a treatment facility where contami nation can be removed. Inside, the facility looks like a big distillery, with two funnellike tanks that hold 6,000 gallons each. Uranium extracted from the tainted water can be recycled.

To ward off ducks and geese that could threaten to spread radioactivity like gnats have done at the Hanford site, Siemens also plays recordings of distressed waterfowl calls.

"They fly overhead all the time, but they never come down,"Femreite said.

When the lagoons finally are dry, Siemens will rip out the lagoon liners and have them buried as low-level radioactive waste. Then, Siemens will have to test the soil. There has been only one leak at Siemens, Femreite said. That came in the early 1970s, when about 50 to 150 gallons leaked out and seeped into the ground water. All of the lagoons have been double-lined since then.

Once the tests wrap up, it's just a matter of returning the land to a natural state.

"We'll just turn it back to desert," Femreite said.