WEST VALLY – The effort to provide more funding for the West Valley Demonstration Project in Cattaragus County has cleared a major hurdle.
A bipartisan amendment introduced by the region’s current Congressman Tom Reed (R-NY) and former representative Brian Higgins (D-NY) passed the in the House last week. The amendment is aimed at making sure resources are accessible for communities to continue nuclear waste cleanup on schedule, including the West Valley site, located in northern Cattaraugus County about ten miles east of Gowanda.
The representatives say that the amendment is designed to help secure an additional $4 million in funding for the clean up effort, which was originally slated to be removed from the federal Department of Energy budget. By putting the money back into the budget, Reed and Higgins say it will help ensure better long-term safety for the local and regional environment, which includes Lake Erie.
The West Valley site was established in the 1960s in response to a federal call for efforts to commercialize the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from power reactors. While the site was in operation, approximately 640 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel was reprocessed. Reprocessing operations were halted between 1972 and 1976 and operations never resumed.
The U.S. Department of Energy became responsible for the site through the West Valley Demonstration Project Act of 1980, legislation requiring the Department to solidify the high-level waste and dispose of it.
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