BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Radioactive waste shipments from Fernald to Nevada could resume as soon as June, now that an investigation of leaky shipping containers is nearly finished, Department of Energy officials said Tuesday. Waste shipments have been suspended since Dec. 15, when a truck driver near Kingman, Ariz., noticed waste liquids dripping from his trailer. Several more leaking "white metal boxes" from the same convoy were later discovered at the Nevada Test Site, where the waste was scheduled for burial.
None of the leaks posed significant health threats. But restarting shipments will be done gradually, starting with the driest, least risky waste.
"We are ramping up very slowly and very methodically," said Tricia Thompson, spokeswoman for Fluor Daniel Fernald, the contractor managing the cleanup project.
Fernald, about 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati, was a uranium processing plant for nuclear weapons. Since production stopped in 1989, the site has been Greater Cincinnati's biggest environmental cleanup project.
In recent years, Fernald has shipped thousands of truckloads of low-level radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site, mostly in the 4-by-4-by-7-foot white metal boxes. More than 1,100 of the boxes remain at Fernald, filled with waste.
In February, a report blamed the December leaks on a manufacturing flaw that Fernald inspectors failed to detect.
The leaking boxes carried solid waste -- earth and chalk-like silica that contained trace amounts of uranium -- but were found to be leaking water that formed in the wastes.
Investigators concluded that the water seeped through container cracks that developed during handling at Fernald, then opened because of vibrations on the road.
Based on the February report, Fluor Daniel has been ordered to make 50 changes in its waste-shipping procedures. Those changes are nearly complete, said Ms. Thompson.
Shipments could resume in June, once Department of Energy officials and interested groups in Ohio and Nevada are satisfied with the changes, said DOE spokesman Gary Stegner. An exact date has not been set.
Initial shipments will use other types of containers, rather than the white metal boxes, which are being redesigned. The filled boxes at Fernald will remain in place until a new plan for repackaging them is complete, Ms. Thompson said.
Members of a neighbors group, Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health, want the shipments resumed as soon as possible, spokeswoman Edwa Yocum said Tuesday. The neighbors worry that the Nevada test site might not accept any more waste from the 1,050-acre Fernald site.
"Then we would be stuck with the waste," Mrs. Yocum said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
