A rail shipment of nuclear
waste, scheduled to come through Akron, has been halted
indefinitely in the wake of last week's terrorist
attacks.
The shipment of highly radioactive nuclear wastes,
which was to go from West Valley, N.Y., to a federal
facility near Pocatello, Idaho, has been canceled by the
U.S. Department of Energy.
The cancellation was confirmed yesterday
by federal officials.
On a four-day trip across Ohio and nine other states,
the train would have carried two giant casks, both
weighing 100 tons, with steel walls 9 inches thick.
Though the route had not been finalized, one taking
the train through Portage, Summit, Wayne and Medina
counties was preferred by the Energy Department.
Ohio officials had expressed confidence in the safety
of the shipment, but environmentalists were troubled by
the plan.
The two casks would have held 125 spent fuel
assemblies from nuclear power plants. These fuel
assemblies, stored at West Valley, need to be removed to
complete a $1.6 billion cleanup of the site south of
Buffalo, officials said.
The assemblies are bundles of finger-width rods
containing fuel pellets. They have been loaded via
robotic arms into the two casks.
The radioactive waste is a result of the first
commercial effort to reprocess used uranium from nuclear
power plants.
From 1966 to 1972, Nuclear Fuel Services Inc.
operated a plant on 150 acres at West Valley. The
company halted reprocessing in 1972 and in 1976 notified
New York state that it intended to withdraw from the
site. At that time, 750 used commercial assemblies were
there.
In 1980, Congress authorized the Department of Energy
to clean the site of radioactive wastes.
Bob
Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com
