PORTLAND (AP) – Rail cars carrying contaminated soil from the former Maine Yankee nuclear power plant to a landfill in Utah are being returned because previous shipments contained water and leaked.

Regulators monitoring the cleanup of the Wiscasset site do not consider the low-level radioactive waste a significant threat, but overly saturated soil can leach contamination into underground water reserves.

The 48 containers are expected to arrive in Maine over the next several weeks, said Eric Howes, a Maine Yankee spokesman. Workers then will ensure the soil is dry and the containers sealed before reshipping them to Envirocare, one of the nation’s only landfills for low-level radioactive waste.

Maine Yankee hopes to resume shipments soon, but the problem could affect the schedule for finishing the cleanup, Howes said. Plans were to complete the $500 million project in February, which has since been pushed back to May.

The decommissioning project is now a few months behind schedule because of weather and unexpected levels of radioactivity in the soil, Howes said. The soil being loaded onto rail cars contains small amounts of radioactivity.

“Until you start digging, you don’t know how deep it goes,” Howes said.

The moisture appears to be the result of condensation created as the soil warms inside the rail cars, said Ron Bellamy, regional chief of decommissioning for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. An inspector will return next week to check on rail shipments and other activities at Maine Yankee.

“They are in the process, as we speak, of confirming why it’s occurring and determining whether any steps are warranted,” Bellamy said.

Tim Barney of Envirocare said Maine Yankee’s shipments have generally been secure. But the company periodically stops shipments that might be too wet because of space limitations in an area reserved to dry soil, he said.

The material is considered far less dangerous to the environment than nuclear fuel rods stored at the site or the building materials and other high-level wastes that have already been removed, according to officials monitoring the cleanup.

But Ray Shadis, a longtime Maine Yankee watchdog who closely monitored the cleanup, said leaking shipments are a potential problem, if not a significant one.

Shadis said Maine Yankee is cutting corners to speed up the process. He criticized a decision to leave behind radioactive piping that will be buried in place, for example.

“It is the least contaminated of all the materials they are shipping offsite,” he said. “Just because it’s in low concentration doesn’t mean it isn’t a matter for environmental concern.”

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, https://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-04-20-05 0905EDT