Company Sends Uranium to Wrong Site

AP via Lycos.com ^ | 01/08/2004

[GeneD]

PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) -- A trucking company accidentally sent a shipment of diluted weapons-grade uranium to a North Carolina nuclear plant instead of its intended destination in Kentucky, but the mix-up posed no risk to anyone, officials said.

The federal government is investigating how six metric tons of blended Russian uranium went to a nuclear fabrication plant in Wilmington, N.C., instead of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

Transport Logistics International sent the load on Dec. 19 _ along with a similarly numbered load from a dock in Norfolk, Va. _ to Global Nuclear Fuel LLC in Wilmington, N.C. Rod Fisk, the trucking company's chief executive officer, said that the error was quickly spotted, and that Global was notified.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes the mistake posed no risk to anyone, a spokesman said Wednesday.

"It was received at a facility authorized to take it," agency spokesman Roger Hannah said.

USEC, the company that operates the plant in Paducah, has bought or agreed to buy $7.5 billion worth of uranium from Russia. The Kentucky plant enriches uranium for use as fuel for nuclear power plants.

The weapons-grade uranium is diluted before being shipped to the United States.

[blau993]

Well, at least they didn't send it to the local day care center.

[Poohbah]

PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) -- A trucking company accidentally sent a shipment of diluted weapons-grade uranium to a North Carolina nuclear plant instead of its intended destination in Kentucky, but the mix-up posed no risk to anyone, officials said.

You'd think that bomb-grade material--even if it IS diluted--would be handled a wee bit more carefully.

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[Billthedrill]

"Ma'am, your Geraniums are here!"

"In crates?"

[steplock]

No one thinks it odd that our nuclear power plants are using "six metric tons of blended RUSSIAN uranium" ?????

[biblewonk]

Not at all, they don't have the money to disassemble their nukes so we are buying them and turning thousands of pounds of weapons grade uranium to hundreds of thousands of pounds of powerplant grade. There's a big web site on it somewhere.

BTW NO MORE NUKES!!!!!! We need more windmills.

[Salvation]

**Well, at least they didn't send it to the local day care center.**

Or the local AlQaeda cell!

[hchutch]

Oh, boy... heads are gonna roll now!

[RightWhale]

heads are gonna roll now!

Nope. The manifest was screwed up. Not the first time, not the last. All union jobs anyway.