THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 3, 1995 TAG: 9506030296
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Portsmouth has been chosen to temporarily store 183,000 gallons of radioactive nitric acid that once helped make nuclear weapons, the U.S. Department of Energy said Friday.
Two shipments of the material already have reached Sea-Land Services, an international shipping company accepting the acid at its Portsmouth Marine Terminal facility, said Larry D. Romine, a DOE program manager.
The material, mixed with 7,500 kilograms of uranium, comes from the environmentally troubled Hanford nuclear weapons plant in Washington state. As part of a massive cleanup there, the U.S. government is getting rid of 52 truckloads of the low-level radioactive acid.
Portsmouth is serving as a way station for the material en route to Great Britain for recycling. Arriving by truck at the rate of two loads per week, the material will stay at Sea-Land for a few days before being placed on a cargo ship, Romine said.
Baltimore and Port Elizabeth, N.J., also may receive some of the acid, but Sea-Land currently is handling the job, Romaine said.
State and international environmental groups have opposed the move since it was proposed almost two years ago.
A local Sierra Club expert said Friday that he remains concerned that the government chose a densely populated port like Portsmouth.
``I still have mixed feelings,'' said Robert Deegan, a Virginia Beach nuclear-issues expert for the Sierra Club. ``I wish they would have taken this to a less-populated facility.''
Portsmouth city officials have not opposed the temporary storage, saying they are confident with the security and safety measures included in the move.
The material arrives in specially constructed steel casks, each containing less than 4,000 gallons of acid.
They are driven by closely monitored trucks that only stop to give the drivers bathroom and food breaks, Romine said.
At Hanford, the acid was spread over nuclear fuel rods, stripping away unwanted substances and metals until only plutonium was left. The plutonium was then used to manufacture nuclear weapons.
But the plant was closed in 1992, and the government has been struggling to clean up nuclear remnants of the Cold War ever since.
The government is paying British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. to take the acid. The company gets to keep the acid it recycles but must return any uranium gleaned during the reprocessing.
Uranium is expected to be shipped back to the United States in 1996 or 1997, probably through Hampton Roads, Romine said. by CNB