CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) -- A big rig loaded with radioactive waste arrived Friday at the nation's first nuclear waste dump after a historic 270-mile journey through cheers, jeers and an attempted blockade.
The truck left Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico and traveled south to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, a 7 1/2-hour trip that followed a quarter-century of studies, protests and lawsuits."I'm ecstatic -- this is just the culmination of everything I've worked for for 25 years," said Wendell Weart, a Sandia National Laboratories scientist who was instrumental in creating WIPP.
The nuclear waste is expected to be buried next week.