U.S. Senator Charles Schumer
WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Schumer is once again calling on the Obama Administration to make the complete cleanup of the West Valley Demonstration project in Cattaraugus County a top priority.
On Thursday Schumer met with, Monica Regalbuto, President Obama’s nominee for the Office of Environmental Management at the Department of Energy.
During the meeting, he requested that she prioritize the complete cleanup of the West Valley and support full federal funding for the effort, which has been short-changed for over five years.
Schumer explained that the West Valley Demonstration Project needs an allocation of at least $75 million per year for at least 10 years in order to complete the first phase of clean up at the out-of-use nuclear test site, but it has been continually underfunded over the past several years.
In 2008, the DOE issued an Environmental Impact Statement which said that $75 million per year in federal funding would be needed to begin cleaning up at a more economically efficient pace. However, to date, the West Valley Demonstration Project has been significantly underfunded in the President’s budget and by Congress. Schumer said each year since the Environmental Impact Statement was issued, the President has underfunded it in his Budget requests – despite the fact that it is still an environmental risk to the residents of Western New York.
West Valley was formerly an operational plant for the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel at West Valley, New York, about ten miles east of Gowanda. . It was operated from 1966-72.
During this time period, 600,000 gallons of highly radioactive waste accumulated in an underground waste tank and today, millions of gallons of radioactive waste remain at the site.
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