FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) — The reactor core at a University of Arkansas-owned nuclear test site has been raised and contained and will be transported to a final disposal site in Nevada in the coming weeks.
Dean Wheeler, a spokesman at the Utah-based nuclear disposal company Energy Solutions, said Monday that the 84,000-pound reactor was successfully lifted from the unused site.
The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that cleanup of the rural Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor site in Washington County began in 2016 but had stalled earlier this year after funding dried up. In April, additional federal money allowed the cleanup to continue.
The site operated until the 1970s, but was never hooked up to generate electricity.
Wheeler says the container holding the reactor will be filled with grout before it's welded shut for transport.