Starmet/NMI: Contractors to Start Shipping Waste Off-Site Next Week

Trucks loaded with waste materials will start rolling away from the Starmet/Nuclear Metals superfund site in West Concord next week, another step forward on the long road toward remediation.

Beginning next week, as many as six trucks could begin leaving the site daily, according to the latest update from Bruce Thompson, project coordinator for de maximus inc.

Loaded trucks leaving the site on weekdays will avoid rush hours and school bus hours, and receive safety and radiological contamination inspections before leaving the gate. Their route will proceed east on Rt. 62, to Rt. 2 west and then on to 495, according to Thompson’s memo, which said the removal of building contents will continue through the end of 2013.

The off-site disposal of waste materials marks the latest step toward the demolition of the buildings at 2229 Main St. and remediation for the depleted uranium-contaminated property.

Former home to Nuclear Metals Inc and later Starmet, the site was added to the Superfund National Priorities List in 2001. An agreement to remove the buildings was finally reached in 2011, the same year the last Starmet employees vacated the premises.

In January, the contractor tasked with site demolition began some outdoor activities, including “clearing trees near the buildings and some minor earthwork to prepare staging areas for trucks and to install a truck scale.”

This January, a new group of employees was added to a cohort of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, which provides benefits to eligible employees and former employees of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and its contractors and subcontractors.

The new group includes all automatic weapons employees who worked for Nuclear Metals or a subsequent owner of its West Concord facility from Oct. 29, 1958 through Dec. 31, 1979 for at least 250 workdays.

Their designation under the SEC came effective on Jan. 6. Through that date, $2.5 million in EEOICPA compensation and medical benefits has been paid to 18 Nuclear Metals Inc. claimants, according to the press release announcing the new cohort.