Uranium cylinders await move to southern Ohio

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) -- Some 1,200 cylinders of depleted uranium rusting in outdoor lots at a former enrichment plant are waiting on special shipping exemptions before they can be trucked to southern Ohio.
The Department of Energy and its Oak Ridge contractors have six exemption requests pending with the Department of Transportation to allow containers that are slightly overweight or otherwise don't meet transportation rules to make the 300-mile trip.
The destination is a sister facility in Piketon, Ohio, where the uranium compounds will be processed into a more stable form for long-term storage or disposal.
Some 4,800 cylinders -- weighing up to 14 tons apiece -- already have made the trip in recent years.
But most of the 1,200 remaining cylinders will need protective nuclear carrier "overpacks" being built in Utah before they can be moved.
DOE officials expect the exemptions will be approved early next year and the project can be completed perhaps as early as September, spokesman Walter Perry said.