Spent Nuclear Fuel Rolls Through Ballston Spa
A convoy carrying the container, similar to this one from 2018, crawled through Saratoga County on it’s way to a train yard for shipment to Idaho (Courtesy of Naval Nuclear Laboratory)
Residents in Ballston Spa and Milton may have noticed an usual site rolling through town recently as a large container filled with nuclear fuel rolled through town on it’s way to Idaho.
The fuel came from the Kenneth A. Kesselring Site in West Milton and represented the first part of the dismantling of a nuclear reactor which had been shutdown in 2019. While most of the work took place at the site itself, given the lack of a direct rail connection to the site, a special container had to be loaded onto the back of a heavy lift truck and driven to and from the facility.
Residents had no reason to be concerned about this transportation. Since 1957, there have been 457 defueling and refueling operations conducted by the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program including 12 at the Kesselring site itself. In it’s history, there hasn’t been any injuries to the public or dangerous releases.
“Each shipment is made in compliance with applicable Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and state regulations and poses no danger to the public,” The Naval Nuclear Laboratory said in a press release. “The containers are very robust and were rigorously analyzed and tested to demonstrate performance in a range of situations. From the first shipment of Naval spent nuclear fuel in 1957, the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has safely shipped 924 containers of Naval spent nuclear fuel without a single injury to a member of the public or any release of radioactivity.”
The press release also said that even if one were to stand six feet away from the container for a full day, they would only receive 10 millirems of radiation — about the same as a chest x ray and much lower than the 300 millirems typically seen in a year.
Once the shipment leaves New York, it will be shipped to the Idaho National Laboratory. Planning for the project has taken place since 2023. The container itself arrived in West Milton back in April 2024.
The Kenneth A. Kesselring site is a training and research facility that has been open since the 1950. It’s named after Kenneth A. Kesselring, the former general manager of the nearby Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. Since 1950, over 55,000 sailors and officers have trained there including future US President Jimmy Carter. In 1952, then Lt. Carter helped set up the training program for enlisted sailors who would serve on the Nuclear Submarine USS Seawolf.
In its history, there haven’t been any incidents of releases or major security breaches at the Kesselring Site. The only one of note coming in 2009 when a truck containing debris from the site crashed outside Wilks Barree, PA. Even then, the amount of radioactivity in the debris was so small that the truck didn’t require warning placards while soil and water in the area didn’t show any increase in radioactivity.
The remaining reactor at the site consists of a “pressurized-water nuclear reactor, auxiliary equipment, and propulsion systems necessary for the training of naval personnel and for the testing and evaluation of design concepts,” according to the latest environmental report on the cite.