The first of the large cranes at Hanford's vitrification plant is coming down.

It will be trucked off the site and down to South Carolina on 21 trailers by Christmas.

The $12.2 billion Waste Treatment, or vitrification, Plant may be a dozen years from full-scale operations, but this is one more sign that progress on construction is being made.

Construction workers have no more use for the 230-foot-tall crane that once towered over the Low Activity Waste Facility to "fly" steel and other construction materials into place.

In October, work was finished on the exterior of the building, including the emission stack that boosts the structure's height from 70 feet to 200 feet - about as high as a 17-story building.

Now, work is being done inside the building on electrical, heating and other systems, and the focus on structural work has switched to the Analytical Laboratory. Monday, the first of 1,700 tons of structural steel went up at the laboratory.

The lab is the last of the four major buildings at the vitrification plant to rise out of the ground after workers finished pouring the steel-laced foundation in September.

It's the smallest of the plant's major buildings, but still has a footprint the size of a football field. It will stand about four stories high - not high enough to require a tower crane.

The project is using two other tower cranes. One is stationed at the High-Level Waste Facility and the second - the tallest at 270 feet - is at the Pretreatment Facility. They're temporarily standing idle after a decision to focus construction on the lab, the Low-Activity Waste Facility and about 18 support structures until more design work is completed on buildings that will handle the most dangerous waste and another earthquake study is completed.

The bright yellow crane that's coming down was purchased by contractor Bechtel National with $1.92 million in federal funds four years ago.

Its operator would take an elevator up. Then, he would climb the rest of the way to 200 feet high to reach a glass-bottomed cab each morning. He operated the machinery from the cab, looking down between his feet.

A lifting boom extended out about 100 feet from the central mast, which rotated 360 degrees. The crane's maximum lifting capacity was 55 tons.

The crane began coming down in pieces this week, with workers climbing up or being lifted in buckets with another crane to disassemble sections to be lowered to the ground.

Thursday, seven trucks were standing by to carry the first pieces to the Savannah River nuclear site, where they'll be used for an unspecified construction project. Fourteen more shipments should be sent to complete the project by Dec. 21, said John Eschenberg, DOE manager of the vitrification plant.

DOE had the option of returning the crane to the original seller for about a quarter of its purchase price. But instead Savannah River asked for the equipment, saving the cost of buying another $2 million crane. It will pay the shipping costs.

"Its a great deal for the government and a great deal for the taxpayer," Eschenberg said.

To see photos of construction at the plant and the cranes being used, go to www.waste2glass.com and click on the construction photobook.

The plant is being built to turn some of Hanford's worst waste into a stable glass form for permanent disposal. The waste is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program.