Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 5, 1993 TAG: 9307050064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CLIFTON FORGE LENGTH: Short
The CSX Transportation train passed through Clifton Forge, said Michael Ross, a Lynchburg volunteer who tracks nuclear shipments for Knolls Action, a nuclear watchdog group.
Ross estimated that the train, restricted to a maximum speed of 35 mph, would reach Newport News sometime today.
The train is carrying two 114-ton casks of highly radioactive spent fuel taken from the USS Enterprise, which is undergoing a $2 billion overhaul at the Newport News shipyard.
U.S. District Judge Harold L. Ryan in Boise, Idaho, last week barred the train from an Idaho disposal site, ordering the federal Department of Energy to halt fuel shipments until it can draft an environmental impact statement.
The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory was the only government disposal site in the nation that accepted such waste.
Virginia officials and Newport News residents fear the waste could end up in storage in Newport News for years.
"You hate to see it come back once you get rid of it," said James Holloway, director of the state Department of Emergency Service's Technological Hazards Division. "Virginia can do nothing that I know of to block it."
Yard spokesman Jack Garrow said it is too early to say how long the spent fuel will remain at the yard.
by CNB