DANGEROUS LOAD * USA - Plutonium waste prepared for long haul

Federal officials hope to begin shipping plutonium-contaminated waste from Oak Ridge to New Mexico later this year

Oak Ridge,TEN,USA -The Oak Ridger, by John Huotari -Jul 14, 2008: -- ... On Monday morning, they displayed two of the custom tractor-trailer rigs that will carry the waste in lead-lined and foam-filled stainless steel containers from the Tranuranic Waste Processing Center west of Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, outside Carlsbad, N.M.... Bill McMillan, DOE's federal project director for transuranic waste in Oak Ridge, said shipments of about 1,500 cubic meters of waste that can be handled by workers in protective clothing could start in September. Another 600 cubic meters of waste that has to be handled remotely, using robotic arms, could begin the long trek to WIPP by year's end... The energy department expects to make roughly 60 to 120 annual truck shipments through 2013 from the Tranuranic Waste Processing Center to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant... During the trip, the waste will be stored in 55-gallon drums inside the special -- and expensive -- shipping containers... In New Mexico, the material will be stored in salt caverns roughly half a mile, or 2,150 feet, below ground... William B. Mackie, institutional programs manager at the U.S. Department of Energy's Carlsbad Field Office said, some of the materials have a radioactive half-life of up to 10,000 years, and officials said transuranic waste cannot be disposed of in Tennessee... (Photo by Lynn Freeny - David Tindell of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency demonstrates just a part of the detailed Level VI safety inspection that takes place prior to transuranic waste leaving Oak Ridge facilities on its way for permanent disposal in New Mexico. The waste includes byproducts of Manhattan Project activities as well as ongoing operations at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory)