Giant nuclear waste dump in Pennsylvania set to be dug up after decades of lawsuits and public outcry

After decades of cancer cases and public outcry, the federal government this week will begin the long-awaited cleanup of a nuclear waste dump in Armstrong County. 

The site in Apollo was a dumping ground for hundreds of 55-gallon drums containing radioactive nuclear waste. But come this week, a half-billion-dollar project to safely remove it will finally begin. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave KDKA an exclusive look at the painstaking, intensive and expensive process to rid the site of radioactive waste in Armstrong County.   

Where is the nuclear waste dump?

Steve Brown grew up running and playing near one of the largest nuclear waste dumps in the nation, and still lives nearby in Parks Township, Armstrong County. 

After decades of protests, cancer cases and multi-million-dollar class action settlements, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin this week the massive and painstaking job of cleaning it up. 

“We’re beginning active remediation,” said Col. Nicholas Melin, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District. “The movement of waste material from here all the way out to Utah, where it will go into permanent storage.”

“The federal government is committed to fully remediating this site. Over $400 million has been invested, and over the next six to eight years, we’ll be moving at the speed of safety, very deliberately removing these materials,” he added. 

Radioactive waste burial ground history

For decades stretching back to the Cold War, volatile material for the U.S. military and nuclear industry was developed and enriched in nearby Apollo, and the waste was stored in 55-gallon drums. Now, hundreds of the drums lie buried in 10 trenches, and experts will spend the next several years removing them and the contaminated soil.

“We’re very slowly removing 6-inch layers of material, packaging them in fabric containers,” Melin said.

Special backhoes will skim that top layer of soil off the top. Then, that soil will be tested for radioactivity, wrapped in special packaging and stored in heavy-metal containers. Every week, trucks will take a half-dozen of the containers to Wampum in Lawrence County, where they will be shipped by rail to Utah to be permanently stored in an underground bunker. 

To safeguard neighbors, there will be three layers of protection: enclosures over the trenches, on-site air monitors and an on-site water treatment plant to clean groundwater.

“Our final layer of protection is these air and water monitors around the perimeter, which are going to enable us to ensure that nothing escapes the perimeter that shouldn’t,” Melin said. 

But with all that protection and all the money spent, neighbors like Brown are still nervous. 

“If they’re going to spend that money, they should have just bought the whole village,” Brown said. “It’d be cheaper.”

Why is the cleanup happening?

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the site is near abandoned mines, and the cleanup is essential to contain any potential spread.  

It’s said that when this painstaking and costly process is concluded, the site will be as safe as your own backyard, and its legacy as a dumping ground for the nuclear age will be part of history.