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It has been 21 years since Brookhaven National Lab first won the right to transport radioactive material through Queens, and eight years since they agreed to notify the city when they moved waste on trains.

But as recently as last month, radioactive waste materials have been making their way along Long Island Rail Road lines, through Queens, on their way to a final resting place in Utah.

“We didn’t know when or where it was coming,” said Dan Andrews, spokesman for Borough President Helen Marshall. “We read about it in a published report – that tons of contaminated soil from Brookhaven Lab was passing through Queens. It looked like nobody at the city level, certainly not county, had any idea it was happening.”
The material is barely radioactive, according to Brookhaven National Lab spokesman Peter Genzer.

“The trains contain soil and some broken up concrete from cleanup projects at the lab,” Genzer said. “This is concrete and soil from around the research reactor at the laboratory,” which is a nuclear reactor that is about 100th the power of an energy-producing reactor.

“The reason the lab was built was for the peaceful exploration of the atom,” Genzer said. The reactor was shut down in 1970, and the lab is in the process of decommissioning it. The soil being shipped has low-level radiation – “the lowest level that requires placarding signs on it,” Genzer said.

“If you’re standing 20 feet away you couldn’t get anything from a radiation detector,” he said.

“We never threatened to stand on the tracks and stop the train,” Andrews said. “We would like notification of New York officials when this sort of thing happens.”

Meetings between Brookhaven National Lab, Marshall, the LIRR, New York & Atlantic Railway and the Office of Emergency Management resolved the dispute, and shipments were expected to resume this week.

A protocol has been established that ensures that the Office of Emergency Management will be notified at least 24 hours prior to shipping to allow fire and police departments a heads up in case of an accident.

Though Genzer assured that even if there were to be an accident, the material does not cause a threat. He said workers do not need to wear special gear to protect themselves from the radiation when loading the material.

Since the beginning of the clean-up project early last year, 200 train cars willed with soil and debris have been shipped, Genzer said. When shipping was halted last month there were 65 cars waiting to go. Brookhaven officials estimate an additional 35 train cars still will need to be loaded and shipped before the current phase of the project is completed.