West Valley Demonstration Project
The West Valley Demonstration Project is a nuclear waste remediation site near the hamlet of West Valley 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.
The State of New York acquired 3,345 acres (13.54 km2) 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.
Nuclear Fuel Services was a subsidiary of the W.R. Grace Company in 1963, when the Atomic Energy Commission granted the company the necessary permits to reprocess spent fuel at the West Valley site. The first shipments of spent fuel arrived at the site in 1965, and reprocessing began the next year. In 1969, Nuclear Fuel Services was acquired by Getty Oil.
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