Hearings to be held on radioactive material

by: Jason Springer

Thu Nov 30, 2006 at 07:58:36 PM EST

The company is no longer in business, but they left a long term mark on the community: a 30-foot, low-grade radioactive rock pile.  Most of the radioactive material remaining at the site consists of the slag generated during production operations and refined dust.

Now rather than clean up the whole site, Shield Alloy wants to cap the radioactive waste right where it is, even though the location was declared a Superfund Site for cleanup in 1983.

Two hearings have been scheduled in early December by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)...

The first meeting will provide an overview of the review process for the decommissioning plan -- a proposal to cap the slag pile for 1,000 years.

The second meeting will let residents hear details of the NRC's environmental review for the plan and allow residents to comment on the possible environmental impacts.