Excavation of radiological waste delayed by 1 year at nuclear site in Parks

The Army Corps of Engineers plans to start digging up radiological waste at a nuclear waste site in Parks Township in 2024, one year later than originally planned.

Tim Herald, the Army Corps’ project manager, said the extra time is needed so the Corps can be sure it’s removing the waste in the safest manner possible.

“We have been evaluating technologies and processes that weren’t used previously at the site to ensure the highest level of safety during excavation,” Herald said.

The cleanup at the 44-acre dump along Route 66, known formally as the Shallow Land Disposal Area, is estimated to cost more than $500 million.

The dump received radioactive and chemical waste from the defunct Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., also known as NUMEC, in Apollo and Parks Township from about 1960 to the early 1970s.

NUMEC and its successors, the Atlantic Richfield Co. and BWX Technologies, produced nuclear fuels for Navy submarines and commercial nuclear power plants and other products.

The Corps is seeking public comment by Aug. 31 on whether people believe the remedy for the site — excavating and shipping out an estimated 36,000 tons of radiological waste — is and will be protective of human health and the environment. The public comments fulfill a regulatory requirement for the cleanup process, Herald said.

Cleanup plans have been in the works since the 1990s. The Corps was the first government agency to put shovel to dirt to remove the radiological contamination in 2011.

The contamination includes uranium 235, which has a half-life of 7 million years.

But the dig was halted shortly after it began when a contractor allegedly mishandled some nuclear material. In addition, greater amounts of complex nuclear material were found than expected.

No one was reported to have been injured.

“That nuclear contamination needs to go,” said Patty Ameno, of Hyde Park, a longtime environmental activist who fought for the cleanup. “It’s the right thing to do given the knowledge and now the experience with the site, its proximity to underground abandoned mines, the Kiski River and the Allegheny River, a major source of drinking water.”

After a decade, the Corps and its new contractor, Houston-based Jacobs Field Services, are developing plans to restart the cleanup of 10 trenches where nuclear materials are buried.

“In 2011, it was difficult to characterize the material in the trenches,” Herald said. “That’s all been revised with better instrumentation and processes.”

The new contractor will have a better system to identify the radiological contents of an open burial trench before excavation and right after the material is dug up, Herald said.

Parks Township Secretary Mary Ralston said, “The uppermost concern for the board of township supervisors is that the cleanup is done safely as possible and that this project, meaning the excavation, will be done and finished.”