"ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The U.S. government’s efforts to clean up Cold War-era waste from nuclear research and bomb making at federal sites around the country has lumbered along for decades, often at a pace that watchdogs and other critics say threatens public health and the environment.
Now, fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic is resulting in more challenges as the nation’s only underground repository for nuclear waste finished ramping down operations Wednesday to keep workers safe.
Over more than 20 years, tons of waste have been stashed deep in the salt caverns that make up the southern New Mexico site. Until recently, several shipments a week of special boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements were being trucked to the remote facility from South Carolina, Idaho and other spots.
That’s all but grinding to a halt.
Shipments to the desert outpost will be limited for the foreseeable future while work at the country’s national laboratories and defense sites shift to only those operations considered “mission critical.”"
Susan Montoya Bryan reports for the Associated Press April 3, 2020.
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