Colorado county puts stop to train transport of radioactive waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory

A southern Colorado county stopped the train transport of low-level radioactive waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory last week, claiming a lab subcontractor and the railway had failed to obtain needed permits. Officials and residents in the small town of Antonito, Colo. — population 1,000 — became angry when they found out last week that waste from the nuclear weapons laboratory was being transferred from trucks to train cars, a football field away from the San Antonio River. "We have stopped the shipments," said Conejos County Commissioner Joe Mestas. "We required they come in and comply with our permit process." On Dec. 7, two train cars were loaded with the low-level waste at the transfer site on private land just off U.S. 285 and taken by the San Luis & Rio Grande railway to a certified waste facility in Clive, Utah. The waste consisted of dirt, wood, metal and wires from old conventional explosives tests, some "very low levels of depleted uranium" and some polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from the lab's legacy disposal sites, according to lab officials...read more