Corps of Engineers has update on $500 million cleanup of Parks nuke waste dump

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hold a virtual meeting Nov. 12 to update the public on its $500 million cleanup of the nuclear waste dump along Route 66 in Parks Township.

The 44-acre dump, officially known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area, is owned by BWX Technologies (also known as Babcock & Wilcox). The dump received radioactive and chemical waste from the former Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC), in Apollo and Parks from about 1960 to the early 1970s.

NUMEC and its successors, the Atlantic Richfield Co. and BWX Technologies, operated plants in Apollo and Parks Township that produced nuclear fuels for Navy submarines, commercial nuclear power plants and other government programs.

The cleanup, which has been planned for more than two decades, stalled in 2011 when some nuclear material was allegedly mishandled and contractors found greater amounts of complex nuclear material than expected.

This time around, a new contractor, Jacobs Field Services, of Houston, Texas, has been in the process of developing works plans to restart the cleanup project.

The firm will work onsite at the nuclear dump next year to install facilities and make preparations to start excavation of the nine burial trenches to remove and ship out the nuclear waste, said Tim Herald, project manager for the Army Corps.

“We will have more sophisticated equipment and instruments and better qualified people than the previous excavation,” he said.

The new equipment will allow the contractors to identify the waste more accurately and quickly, although the process will be a slow one focusing more on safety than speed, Herald said.

Longtime environmental activist Patty Ameno of Hyde Park was happy to hear about the re-start of the cleanup.

“Even though I served in the U.S. Navy, I have to say from my heart that the Army Corps of Engineers is our best and brightest to this project,” said Ameno, who has been pushing for the cleanup since 1988.

“I thank them and the late U.S. Rep. John Murtha and current U.S. Sen. Bob Casey for keeping their hand on the pulse on this much-needed cleanup,” she said. Ameno has amassed a reported several million documents on the site and nuclear operations of the two nuclear fuel plants.

The cleanup is a priority for the Corps, Herald said.

Funding is not a problem, he added. In 2020, the cleanup received about $15 million.

Residents can send their questions about the cleanup in advance of the meeting directly to the Corps at CELRP-PA@usace.army.mil or call 412-395-7500.