Following the discovery of more contaminated soil last year, the cleanup of Manhattan Project-era radiological waste at the former DuPont Chambers Works in Deepwater, N.J., will continue until 2038, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said at a recent public presentation in nearby Salem County.
Since the corps began excavation work in 2014, it has removed 92,660 cubic yards — about 3,250 garbage trucks’ worth — of material, much of it contaminated with uranium, the key component in the development of an atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project’s core mission.
Corps representatives said that some 53,900 more cubic yards of earth are slated to be removed by 2032, followed by up to five years of groundwater monitoring.
Secret research along the lower Delaware
Between 1942 and 1947, scientists worked in secret to develop and produce uranium materials at the site, now owned by the Chemours Company, which sprawls for 600 acres along the banks of the lower Delaware River, beneath the shadow of the Delaware Memorial Bridge…