thumb|250px|The West Valley Demonstration Project core processing facility, viewed from Rock Springs Road, in August 2016.

The West Valley Demonstration Project is a nuclear waste remediation site in West Valley, New York in the U.S. state of New York. The project focuses on the cleanup and containment of radioactive waste left behind after the abandonment of a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in 1980. The project was created by an Act of Congress in 1980 and is directed to be a cooperative effort between the United States Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Despite over 30 years of cleanup efforts and billions of dollars having been spent at the site, the West Valley Demonstration Project property was described as "arguably Western New York's most toxic location" in 2013.

History

1965 to 1980: Commercial operations by Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc.

The State of New York acquired of land in the Town of Ashford, near West Valley, in 1961 with the intention of developing an atomic industrial area. The property was named the Western New York Nuclear Service Center and would eventually host a commercial spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant and low-level radioactive waste disposal site that was operated by Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc.

thumb|200px|left|A 23-ton cask containing a single [[fuel element is lowered into the unloading pool at Nuclear Fuel Services' West Valley reprocessing plant circa 1966.]]

The plant reprocessed spent reactor fuel at the site from 1966 to 1972. During this time period, the facility processed of plutonium and of spent uranium. An additional of the property was licensed by New York State for burial of low-level radioactive waste in deep trenches. After reprocessing operations ceased in 1972, Nuclear Fuel Services continued to accept low-level radioactive waste for disposal at the site until it was discovered that contaminated water was leaking from the trenches. Nuclear Fuel Services was unable to obtain regulatory approval to remove and treat the contaminated water, and stopped accepting waste for burial in 1975. In total, approximately of low-level waste was buried at the site.

Escalating regulation required plant modifications which were deemed uneconomic by Nuclear Fuel Services, who ceased all operations at the facility in 1976. After Nuclear Fuel Services' lease expired in 1980, the site and its accumulated waste became the responsibility of New York State. The processes used to solidify and contain the site's nuclear waste were intended to demonstrate strategies that could be used at other cleanup sites.

See also

  • Nuclear fuel
  • Nuclear fuel cycle
  • Sellafield
  • COGEMA La Hague site

References

  • U.S. Department of Energy's West Valley Demonstration Project website
  • West Valley Demonstration Project Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2013
  • 1977 Congressional hearing on decommissioning
  • WVDP Cooperative Agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency
  • 2010 Final Environmental Impact Statement for Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the West Valley Demonstration Project and Western New York Nuclear Service Center
  • Entry from the Center for Land Use Interpretation's exhibit "Perpetual Architecture: Uranium Disposal Cells of America"
  • 1960s film by Nuclear Fuel Services about their West Valley facility
  • West Valley Citizen Task Force
  • The Coalition on West Valley Wastes