(The Associated Press circulated the following article on September 22.)
BUFFALO, N.Y. — An empty container used to store spent nuclear fuel tipped over Thursday while being hauled by train to a shipyard. The container was not damaged and there was no release of radiation, the Department of Energy said.
The 320,000-pound container tipped when the train sideswiped another in the CSX Frontier Railyard in Buffalo, CSX spokesman Gary Sease said. No one was hurt.
The container was being taken to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, from the DOE’s Naval Reactors Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, where it had been emptied of used nuclear fuel from a Navy warship.
The container had no visible damage, and testing confirmed no release of radioactivity, said Jim Carey, a spokesman for the DOE’s Pittsburgh Naval Reactors Office.
The cause of the collision was under investigation, Sease said.
Part of the Buffalo railyard was shut down Thursday as crews and cranes arrived.
Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds called for an investigation into, among other things, how close nuclear waste containers come to other rail traffic and whether operational or security procedures were violated.
Carey called the mishap highly unusual, saying about 750 containers have been shipped without a problem.