ASHFORD HOLLOW — Members of the West Valley Citizens Task Force will meet next month with U.S. Department of Energy officials to press for a $60 million yearly commitment to cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project.
Bryan Bower, director of the West Valley cleanup site in the town of Ashford, said 45 minutes has been set aside by the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management for the afternoon of Feb. 5.
The citizens’ group, which acts as a watchdog over the cleanup of the former spent nuclear fuel reprocessing project, had signed off two years ago on a two-phase process for moving forward on the nuclear cleanup: Decommission and demolish above-ground facilities while continuing to study the nuclear burial sites and the underground steel tanks, which contain a radioactive sludge.
Mr. Bower said there is a finite amount of money for smaller federal nuclear cleanup sites in the Department of Energy budget. Increasing the funding for any of the sites would decrease funding for the remaining sites, he said. A cut in funding would mean a delay in some work and would end up costing more over time, he added.
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