NOCOBALT-4-FOOD - RADIATOR CLOSES!

News in brief from the Philadelphia area ~

QUAKERTOWN, Pa. - Opponents' legal efforts to shut down a nuclear irradiator in Milford Township

were futile, but slow demand for its services accomplished the same thing.

"We have made a decision to shut down the irradiator," Jim Wood, president of CFC Logistics, said Monday.

The company had operated the irradiator at its 250,000-square-foot cold storage warehouse since October 2003.

Wood said it stopped irradiating products last week.

"The market for irradiating meat never materialized and the cold storage business has exploded and is a much more

profitable business for us to be in," Wood said. Eliminating the irradiator will increase the company's cold storage

capacity by about 10 percent, he said.

Wood testified at a Bucks County Court hearing in 2003 that the company spent about $1.5 million to buy and

install the irradiator. The plant drew opposition, but Michael Farrar of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board

had issued an order in January to end a hearing to overturn its license.

The government has long allowed irradiation of wheat and flour to discourage pests, and of potatoes, to retard

sprouting. Spices, pork, poultry and produce were approved for irradiation in 1985; beef was approved in 1997,

and eggs in 2000.

The Milford Township facility used cobalt 60, like most of the 50 or so irradiators in the United States, and had

irradiated nonfood products such as medical supplies, botanicals and spices.

The Philadelphia Inquirer (article no longer available online)

Irradiator that spurred opposition is to close

By Walter F. Naedele
Inquirer Staff Writer

In the end, there was not enough food to irradiate.

So CFC Logistics has decided to shut down the cobalt 60 irradiator in Milford Township that stirred repeated court battles in 2003 and 2004.

Since it began operating in late 2003, the irradiator had emitted gamma rays from the radioactive metal to kill bacteria in ingredients intended for cosmetics and in plants used as health aids.

But CFC Logistics president James Wood said in an interview Tuesday that "the whole business plan was designed for meat and food" and that that market "never really panned out."

Wood blamed lack of "consumer acceptance and cost and other alternative technologies for food safety."

The irradiator was opposed by a handful of residents and outsiders, led by Concerned Citizens of Milford Township.

Jack Sutton, a home builder who helped lead the group, said bitterly, "It was real nice of CFC to come here and divide the community." CFC Logistics is based in Quakertown.

Even now, Sutton said, "there are a lot of people that don't even talk to each other because of this."

In an interview at a November 2003 meeting of Concerned Citizens, attended by 23 people, Sutton had said, "Everybody in the township feels it's a lost cause."

On Tuesday, Sutton said his group had spent "tens of thousands" of dollars, mostly on court costs.

The opposition feared radiation leaks; one of its lawyers told a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) hearing that if a 100-m.p.h. hurricane hit the site, a radiation cloud might significantly harm Philadelphia.

CFC Logistics had installed the irradiator in its $13 million cold-storage warehouse, which it had built in 2002 near the Route 663 entrance to the northeast extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

At a September 2003 hearing in Bucks County Court, Wood said his firm had spent about $1.5 million on the irradiation project, which the NRC had approved on Aug. 27.

Milford Township had petitioned the court to prohibit the firm from bringing any radioactive material into the township.

But at that hearing, Township Manager Jeffrey Vey seemed to distance himself from the more radical opponents, testifying that "it is highly improbable that [a nuclear accident] will occur" there.

"It is my belief," Vey said, "that if the irradiator goes into operation... it will be operated safely."

On Tuesday, Wood said his firm had stopped accepting customers' orders but that the shutdown would be gradual.

He said the $1.5 million that he mentioned in 2003 was "a good ballpark" figure for the total cost of the irradiation project. "We hope to recoup a lot of that, in selling the cobalt."

Now, he said, "we want to focus on our core business of cold storage and distribution."