CN, state and Gore offcials celebrate nuclear waste site cleanup

CN, state and Gore officials celebrate nuclear waste site cleanup

Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma and city officials celebrate the removal of radioactive waste from the former Sequoyah Fuels Corp.

BY WILL CHAVEZ Assistant Editor

GORE – On Nov. 30, Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma and Gore city officials announced that the remaining nuclear waste at the former Sequoyah Fuels Corp. site east of Gore had been removed.

The last semitrailers left the site in late November, hauling away the last of 511 loads of nuclear waste that was hazardous for Sequoyah County and its citizens for decades.

Mike Broderick, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality Radiation Program manager said at the ceremony that he first dealt with the SFC site in 1994.

“This is a proud day because when I came here in 1994, the future looked much darker. At that time there was limited funding. It was going to be very inadequate for the cleanup, and there was no possibility that we could see to have a long-term custodian to take care of the site. That meant the site would be abandoned and would be a peril to the people and to the rivers here,” he said. “What a difference there is between that depressing future to what we have today. The highest-risk material has been removed from the site, and the site will end up in the care of the federal government, so it will not be a burden to Oklahoma taxpayers.”

Broderick said some uranium that was at the site has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

The 10,000 tons of radioactive waste was

OSIYO TV The Sequoyah Fuels Corp. site before nuclear waste was removed from the site, which is located near the junction of the Illinois and Arkansas rivers in Sequoyah County.