Pennsylvania Radio Active Waste Sent to Idaho

WEST NEWTON, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection says containers of radioactive drilling waste rejected by a southwestern Pennsylvania landfill have been hauled to a U.S. Ecology site in Idaho for safe disposal.

DEP spokesman John Poister tells the (Washington) Observer-Reporter that Rice Energy has removed the roll off boxes containing what's called TENORM waste. That stands for technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material and it refers to radioactive substances in the ground that are disturbed and uncovered by human activity.

A Rice Energy truck was hauling the waste from a Greene County well site when the load set off radioactivity detectors at a landfill in South Huntingdon Township on April 19. The material contained Radium 226 and was returned and quarantined at the well site until it could be shipped out of state.