After decades of cancer cases and public outcry, the federal government this week will begin the long-awaited cleanup of a nuclear waste dump in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.
The site in Apollo served as a dumping ground for hundreds of 55-gallon drums containing radioactive nuclear waste, one of the largest such sites in the nation.
Now, after decades of protests, cancer cases and multi-million-dollar class action settlements, this week the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin the massive job of cleaning it up.
KDKA got an exclusive look at the painstaking, intensive and expensive process to rid the site of radioactive waste.
“We’re beginning active remediation,” said Col. Nicholas Melin, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District. “The movement of waste material from here all the way out to Utah, where it will go into permanent storage.”
“The federal government is committed to fully remediating this site. Over $400 million has been invested, and over the next six to eight years, we’ll be moving at the speed of safety, very deliberately removing these materials,” he added.
Removing the radioactive waste
For decades stretching back to the Cold War, volatile material for the U.S. military and nuclear industry was developed and enriched in nearby Apollo, and the waste was stored in 55-gallon drums. Now, hundreds of the drums lie buried in 10 trenches, and experts will spend the next several years removing them and the contaminated soil.
“We’re very slowly removing 6-inch layers of material,” Melin explained.
Special backhoes will skim that top layer of soil off the top. Then, that soil will be tested for radioactivity, wrapped in special fabric packaging and stored in heavy-metal containers. Every week, trucks will take a half-dozen of the containers to Wampum in Lawrence County, where they will be shipped by rail to Utah to be permanently stored in an underground bunker.
Protecting the community
To safeguard neighbors, there will be three layers of protection: enclosures over the trenches, on-site air monitors and an on-site water treatment plant to clean groundwater.
“Our final layer of protection is these air and water monitors around the perimeter, which are going to enable us to ensure that nothing escapes the perimeter that shouldn’t,” Melin said.
Steve Brown grew up running and playing near the nuclear waste dump, and still lives nearby in Parks Township, Armstrong County.
Even with all that protection and all the money spent, neighbors like Brown are still nervous.
“If they’re going to spend that money, they should have just bought the whole village,” Brown said. “It’d be cheaper.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the site is near abandoned mines, and the cleanup is essential to contain any potential spread.
It’s said that when this painstaking and costly process is concluded, the site will be as safe as your own backyard, and its legacy as a dumping ground for the nuclear age will be part of history.