In March of 1979 my family farmed in Dauphin County, but my husband and I were anticipating a move across the country to Idaho. In so doing we traveled the path the wastes from TMI would take.
In the high desert and volcanic landscape of Eastern Idaho, the US Navy has an 890 square mile nuclear research lab active since the 1950’s. It was to this installation that barrels of nuclear waste from TMI traveled by rail from 1986 – 1990 for “safe” storage. Idaho is less densely populated than PA and the landscape is rugged, but the site for the waste storage is on the Snake River aquifer, the life-blood of much of the state. About this same time we in Idaho began learning about secret radioactive discharges from this Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, always “acceptable” amounts. Researchers also found plutonium and other toxins had leached into the aquifer beyond the storage containers.
We left Idaho and have moved back to Elizabethtown. A more secure storage site for TMI wastes has yet to be found.
Joan
FYI – Also in the 1980’s while in Idaho we learned that Met Ed replaced transformers that contained PCB’s. The transformers also were sent to Idaho for burial in old Titan missile silos around the Air Force base in Mt. Home.
Joan and Evan