nuclear-news

Rocketing costs for cleaning up nuclear waste

Nuclear cleanup costs expected to skyrocket at Parks, TRIB LIVE News, By Mary Ann Thomas, ASPINWALL HERALD, March 4, 2012 The cleanup costs for the nuclear waste dump in Parks Township are expected to soar from $170 million to at least $250 million and maybe as much as half a billion dollars because of recently discovered complexities of the site and safety considerations.

The Army Corps of Engineers will update residents on the cleanup during a public meeting later this month at the Parks Township Volunteer Fire Department.

The waste dump, currently owned by BWX Technologies (Babcock & Wilcox) was active from about 1960 to the early 1970s receiving nuclear and chemical waste from the former Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. in Apollo and Parks, which produced nuclear fuel for submarines and a range of nuclear products for the government and private industry.

After starting and stopping excavation last year in two of 10 waste trenches on the 44-acre site along Route 66, the agency is revising its cleanup plans and budget and changing contractors.

After the first shovel hit the dirt last summer to dig out the first trenches, more than nuclear waste hit the fan. Worked stopped at the Parks site in October after workers for the prime contractor, Cabrera Services, of East Hartford, Con., allegedly mishandled some nuclear waste in barrels, according to the Corps.

The contractor violated safety procedures that were in place to prevent too much radioactive material from being placed close together, potentially causing a chain reaction that could release unsafe levels of radiation. The situation is known as a “criticality.”

Although no one was hurt, a criticality can cause severe radiation exposure to workers and contamination of the environment. The Corps held a public meeting soon after the incident to tell residents about the work stoppage and its investigation of the incident……

The Parks nuclear waste dump is one of 24 active sites in 10 states in the Corp’s Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, a cleanup program for radioactive contamination from the Manhattan Project, the top secret project that produced the world’s first atomic bombs, and early U.S. Atomic Energy Commission operations.

After years of study, the Corps estimated in 2007 that the cleanup would take about three years and cost about $44.5 million.

Closer to actual excavation, that cost increased to $76 million by early 2010. Then, the project ballooned to $170 million as the Corps prepped the Parks site for the cleanup with a new access road, water treatment plant and a 150-feet-by-400-feet materials handling building in 2010 and 2011.

With the latest problems at the site and the need for new procedures, the new cost estimates put the price tag at up to 11 times greater than the original estimate.Nuclear cleanup costs expected to skyrocket at Parks – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_784769.html#ixzz1oHeO6G00

March 6, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes