The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Buffalo District announced this week that it has begun remediation work at the West Valley Demonstration Project. The 150-acre site, located in the Town of Ashford in northern Cattaraugus County, is the location of the only commercial spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to operate in the United States. According to USACE, the site — which operated from 1963-1972 — processed 640 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and generated over 600,000 gallons of liquid high-level waste. In 1980, Congress passed legislation requiring the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct a high-level waste management demonstration project at the site and transport it to a federal repository for disposal. The USACE Buffalo District has started work on remediating the…..