(The following story appeared on the Toledo Blade website on November 1.)
TOLEDO, Ohio — A radioactive nuclear reactor that passed through southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio two weeks ago has arrived at its final resting place, a Barnwell, S.C., dump.
The rare journey began Oct. 7 at Consumers Energy’s decommissioned Big Rock Point nuclear plant near Charlevoix, Mich., where the reactor had been used for 35 years. The haul took 23 days over highway and rail before being completed Thursday when the reactor was delivered to the South Carolina dump, one of the only ones in the country licensed to accept that type of waste.
The device, a whopping 580,000 pounds, was temporarily held up in the Toledo area Oct. 17-18 because of complications in transferring it from the CSX to Norfolk Southern rail lines. It stayed in the CSX rail yard in Walbridge until Norfolk Southern gave authorization for the transfer to its tracks in Fostoria. The utility claimed the delay did not expose residents to excessive radiation.