Residents get inside look at former NUMEC facility

Since the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. finished burying barrels of radioactive waste, contaminated clothing, a truck and other items in the 1960s, never has the Parks Township nuclear dump been so busy.

What was once a weedy field surrounded by a fence studded with nuclear hazard placards is now an active work site bustling with trailers, a new road, a water treatment plant and a materials-handling building the size of an airplane hangar.

As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepares to remove the first shovel of an estimated 24,300 cubic yards of radiological and chemical contaminated dirt and debris next month, the agency offered a rare public tour of the grounds.

The Corps opened up the site, knows as the Shallow Land Disposal Area, to area residents on Wednesday so they could catch a glimpse of how cleanup operations will work, according to Corps spokesman Dan Jones.

"We don't want to seem like we're hiding anything," he said. "We want the public to know what is going on here and what the site looks like."

Shrouded in mystery and overgrown vegetation along Route 66 for decades, the 44-acre dump has had little activity except for occasional testing and surveys. In the 1960s, radiological and chemical waste from NUMEC's nuclear fuel plant in Apollo was buried in 10 trenches. The dump sat idle since then as successors of NUMEC, the Atlantic Richfield Company and Babcock & Wilcox and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, debated the site's fate.

After a couple of decades of false starts and community backlash against keeping the waste on site in the rural Parks community for perpetuity, the late U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, entered legislation calling for the excavation and removal of the radiological contamination by the Corps of Engineers.

Now the federal agency has readied the grounds to dig up and ship out nuclear waste, a process that could take eight to 10 years. For the first season of digging, the Corps plans to excavate trenches 2, 3, and 9, which are near each other.

"We're anxious and ready to go," said Jim Boyle, civil engineer with the Corps in Buffalo, N.Y.

A half-mile road was built, a water plant installed and the material-handling building erected. Crews will sort and test contaminated items from the site at the materials facility.

Security at the site for Wednesday's public tour required the 11 area residents and members of the media to be scanned by a wand to check for metals and other potentially dangerous devices before boarding the tour bus. Parks Township police escorted the bus through the site.

LCQ16: Handling of waste car batteries

&Nbsp;    It is understood that the car batteries widely used in cars at present contain high concentrations of lead and acid liquids and, if handled improperly, will seriously pollute water and soil.  However, some trade representatives have reflected that there is currently no suitable treatment facility in Hong Kong, and they worry that law-breakers will dissemble waste car batteries improperly to extract useful substances from these waste batteries, causing pollution problems.  In this connection, will the Government inform this Council: (b) in accordance with existing requirements, how LCWCs should handle the car batteries they collected; and whether it knows, in the past three years, if there is any difference between the number of waste car batteries handled in accordance with the procedures required at present and the actual number of car batteries replaced; if so, of the details;       Generally speaking, abandoned waste car batteries fall within the category of chemical waste and are regulated under the Waste Disposal Ordinance and the Waste Disposal (Chemical Waste) (General) Regulation (hereinafter called "the Regulation").  According to the Regulation, waste car battery producers such as auto repair shops, must register with the Environmental Protection Department (EPD).  The packaging, labelling and storage of waste batteries must follow the Code of Practice published under the Regulation.  There are currently about 1 700 registered producers of waste car batteries in Hong Kong.  The Waste Disposal Ordinance provides for the licensing of collection and disposal of waste car batteries.  Waste car battery collectors and disposal facilities must be licensed and are required to manage waste car batteries in accordance with the licence conditions.   There are currently 23 licensed collectors and two licensed recycling or disposal facilities.   The Waste Disposal Ordinance also controls import and export of waste car batteries.  A permit must be obtained from the EPD for each import or export case and the operation must comply with the permit conditions.  In addition, a "Trip Ticket" system is currently in force to track the generation, collection and disposal of waste batteries.

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