YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy plans to resume shipping radioactive waste from the Hanford nuclear reservation to a repository in New Mexico in early March.
The Energy Department halted waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., in September 2008. Spokesman Geoff Tyree says available money at that time was focused on cleaning up contaminated areas along the Columbia River, the Pacific Northwest’s largest waterway.
Tyree says $30 million in federal stimulus money is enabling the department to expand waste packaging operations again at the south-central Washington site. The first shipments to New Mexico will be in early March.
