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LOOW-RAB announces program on NFFS

by jmaloni
Sat, Aug 7th 2010 01:00 pm

The Lake Ontario Ordnance Works Restoration Advisory Board, as part of its continuing series, "LOOW Site Radioactive Storage: The Experts Speak," invites area residents to attend a program Monday, Aug. 9, at Niagara University. 

LOOW-RAB spokesman Dr. Joseph Gardella Jr., an environmental studies professor at the University at Buffalo, reports that Nathalie A. Wall, Ph.D., assistant professor at Washington State University, will offer a presentation on "The Processing of High Activity Radioactive Materials," specifically discussing the Niagara Falls Storage Site at LOOW. The session runs from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in Dunleavy Hall, Room 127.

"The LOOW site houses the NFSS which contains almost 2,000 curies of high activity radiological residues within a subsurface containment cell located one mile east of Lewiston-Porter Central School District property. The residues were shipped to Lewiston from atomic weapons production facilities in the 1940s and 50s," says Gardella.

He reports that, prior to joining Washington State University, Wall worked at the French Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique in the division that studies nuclear waste repositories. In addition, she held postdoctoral appointments at Florida State University and for the Sandia National Laboratories. "Her research focuses on the environmental behavior of radioactive contaminants with the purposes of providing information on the remediation of radioactive contaminated sites and to ensure the safety of future and existing nuclear waste repositories.

"Twenty-five years ago, federal agencies constructed the NFSS as a temporary storage site in Lewiston. Today the agencies are evaluating the final disposition of these materials," says Gardella.

He reports this program is one of a series of technical and community based presentations by North American scientists for the public. The events are sponsored by the LOOW-RAB and supported by University at Buffalo Larkin Chair of Chemistry, Niagara University and Lewiston-Porter Central School District. The series of community involvement meetings focuses on issues surrounding the future of the NFFS.

For further information, contact Gardella at 863-4672 or e-mail [email protected].

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