Salamanca Press — 1/26/23
For decades, the West Valley Citizens Task Force, environmental groups and area county and local governments have pressed for a full cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project.
The Seneca Nation has also called for a full cleanup at West Valley.
The 200‐acre WVDP in the town of Ashford was the site of the nation’s only commercial reprocessing plant for spent nuclear fuel, which operated from 1966 to 1972.
It was many years after the site was abandoned by Nuclear Fuel Services that the West Valley Demonstration Project Act of 1980 was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter.
Many milestones have been met, such as solidifying 600,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste and preparing the main plant process building for deconstruction, which is ongoing. That is expected to take up to 30 months.
But what of underground radioactive hazards — two very large steel tanks with radioactive residue inside and the New York State and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRD) Disposal Areas that sit on a plateau above a waterway that empties into Cattaraugus Creek, which in turn flows to Lake Erie?
Read the full article here.
