Officials finish buried nuclear waste cleanup at Idaho site

ARCO, Idaho (AP) — Federal officials say they’ve completed digging up and removing radioactive and hazardous waste buried for decades in unlined pits at a nuclear facility that sits atop a giant aquifer in eastern Idaho. The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday held a celebration to mark the completion of removing specifically-targeted buried waste from a 97-acre landfill at its 890-square-mile site that includes the Idaho National Laboratory. The targeted radioactive waste included plutonium-contaminated filters, graphite molds, sludges containing solvents and oxidized uranium generated during the Cold War. Some radioactive and hazardous waste remains at the landfill and will receive an earthen cover.