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"The office of Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania attempted to obtain a statement from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission according to documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act. On August 27, 2009, Arlen Specter wrote to Rebecca Schmidt asking that the NRC "issue a formal public statement confirming that he [constituent Zalman Shapiro] was not involved in any activities related to the diversion of uranium to Israel." http://www.IRmep.org/08272009specter_numec.pdf Zalman Shapiro was formerly president of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation at Apollo, PA. According to a secret GAO report "Nuclear Diversion in the US?" partially declassified on May 6, 2010 NUMEC received over 22 tons of uranium-235, the key material used to fabricate nuclear weapons. Israel's top economic espionage case officer Rafael Eitan, who handled spy Jonathan Pollard in the 1980s, infiltrated NUMEC under false pretenses in 1968. According to Anthony Cordesman, "there is no conceivable reason for Eitan to have gone [to the Apollo plant] but for the nuclear material." CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden called NUMEC "an Israeli operation from the beginning." NUMEC's venture capital came from David Lowenthal, who had close ties to Israeli intelligence and David Ben-Gurion,who spearheaded Israel's nuclear weapons program. "

"A declassified Government Accountability Office report entitled "Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion" reveals serious flaws hampering investigations into diversions of US weapons grade uranium to Israel. The report and related correspondence totaling 62 pages released on May 6, 2010 are now publicly available for download at: http://www.irmep.org/co1162251.pdf. The report examines the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) between 1957 and 1967 when it received over 22 tons of Uranium-235 -- the key material used to fabricate nuclear weapons. NUMEC's founder and President Zalman M. Shapiro was a sales agent for the Defense Ministry of Israel in the US and head of a local Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) chapter. In the early 1960s the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began documenting suspicious lapses in security at NUMEC's plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania. In 1965 an AEC audit found NUMEC could no longer account for over 200 pounds of highly enriched uranium. Subsequent estimates spiraled to almost 600 pounds."

"The Cold War is a fading memory and nuclear weapons production in the Alle-Kiski Valley ended decades ago. But the remnants of that production - involving radioactive plutonium - still lie just beneath the surface of 14 acres in Parks, Armstrong County. The site remains uncontained, on top of an abandoned coal mine and close to the Kiskiminetas River. The Valley News Dispatch has spent a year reviewing thousands of documents - many newly declassified - concerning the site and talking to the people whose lives have been unalterably changed by the defunct company known as NUMEC."

SUMMARY: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gives notice concerning the final effect of the HHS decision to designate a class of employees at the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) facility in Parks Township, Pennsylvania, as an addition to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. On May 30, 2008, as provided for under 42 U.S.C. 7384q(b), the Secretary of HHS designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC:

After making plans for more than 20 years, the first ton of radioactive dirt will be removed from the nuclear waste dump in Parks this summer for the much anticipated 3-year, $76 million cleanup by the Army Corps of Engineers. The removal of 50,000 tons of nuclear-contaminated soil at what is officially known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area is the last vestige of the nuclear legacy from two former nuclear fuel plants in Apollo and Parks that operated from 1957 to mid-1980s. The plants, owned by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) and later the Atlantic Richfield Co. and Babcock & Wilcox (B&W), produced nuclear fuel for submarines and power plants as well as a range of nuclear products for the U.S. government and others. Moving on hasn't come quickly or cheaply. Lawsuits for personal injury and contamination, cleanups and government payments to contaminated workers have topped $267 million in more than two decades.

After making plans for more than 20 years, the first ton of radioactive dirt will be removed from the nuclear waste dump in Parks this summer for the much anticipated 3-year, $76 million cleanup by the Army Corps of Engineers. The removal of 50,000 tons of nuclear-contaminated soil at what is officially known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area is the last vestige of the nuclear legacy from two former nuclear fuel plants in Apollo and Parks that operated from 1957 to mid-1980s. The plants, owned by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) and later the Atlantic Richfield Co. and Babcock & Wilcox (B&W), produced nuclear fuel for submarines and power plants as well as a range of nuclear products for the U.S. government and others. Moving on hasn't come quickly or cheaply. Lawsuits for personal injury and contamination, cleanups and government payments to contaminated workers have topped $267 million in more than two decades.

"The cost to remove radioactive dirt and debris from the nuclear waste dump along Route 66 in Parks has skyrocketed from $76 million to $170 million. The increase adds to a growing tally of expenses related to the production of nuclear fuel at the former Nuclear Material and Equipment Corp. in Apollo and Parks from 1957 to the mid-1980s. Lawsuits for personal injury and contamination, the razing and cleanup of two nuclear fuel plants and government payments to contaminated workers have topped $267 million over the last two decades. The Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh, the federal agency charged by Congress to excavate and remove the radiological materials, revised its cost estimates as officials hammer out the details to start digging up the site next year."

Although the Army Corps of Engineers is still working out the details for removal of 50,000 tons of radioactive debris from a dump along Route 66, they will do so one foot at a time. The nuclear burial grounds, technically known as the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA), were established in the late 1950s as a dump for radioactive and toxic chemical waste from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., or NUMEC, with facilities in Apollo and Parks.

An Armstrong County judge has ordered the exhumation of a West Leechburg woman who died 40 years ago to determine the cause of death and answer questions about her exposure to radiation and other contaminants.

"The Army Corps of Engineers will hold its rescheduled meeting on the cleanup of the BWX Technologies nuclear waste dump along Route 66 in Parks later this month. The much-anticipated public meeting originally was scheduled for Feb. 23 but was canceled by the Corps Pittsburgh District because the agency was preparing for potential flooding from local rivers. The anticipated flooding never materialized. The 44-acre dump site near Kiskimere Road received a variety of contaminated waste from BWXT's predecessors, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC), and the Atlantic Richfield Co. plant in Apollo from 1960 to 1970. The Apollo plant produced nuclear fuel for submarines and power plants as well as a range of nuclear products for the U.S. government and others."

"A Rhode Island law firm that won major settlements against the tobacco industry filed a federal lawsuit Friday on behalf of three Kiski Valley residents who allege wrongful death, personal injury and damages from the operations of two former nuclear fuels plants in Apollo and Parks. Although the lawsuit, filed by the Providence-based law firm Motley Rice, does not disclose a dollar figure sought in damages, the court document states that "... incidents to health, property and the environment are extremely dire and can be measured in the millions, if not billions of dollars." The defendants, Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group and the Atlantic Richfield, operated a uranium fuel processing plant in Apollo and a plutonium plant in Parks from 1957-86."