Birmingham, AL – Birmingham is on a route for regular shipments of Cold War-era radioactive waste from Tennessee that's scheduled to begin this fall
Trucks will move from Oak Ridge, Tenn., along Interstates 59, 20 and 459 and on to Carlsbad, N.M. In Carlsbad, the estimated 60 to 120 truckloads a year of waste will be buried a half-mile deep in containers in an old salt mine.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the transports to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad are expected to take three years.
The trucks on the 27-hour, 1,400-mile trip will move about 74,000 cubic feet of waste - more than 18,000 barrels - out of Oak Ridge. The two trucks designed to haul the waste were on display Wednesday at the Riverchase Galleria.
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