The site in Parks Twp., Armstrong County, was one of several properties -- all about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh -- that spawned class-action litigation and accusations that radioactive contamination contributed to cancer cases in Kiskiminetas River Valley.

"Radioactive material on this site has been cleaned up to meet our strict criteria, and the site is now safe for other uses," the NRC said of the former plutonium plant site. The site had radioactive material on it from 1960 through 1996, according to the NRC.

NRC officials said yesterday that the cleanup continues at a shallow waste dump nearby.

Another nuclear plant site, in neighboring Apollo, was declared safe for unrestricted use in 1997.

"We consider this a significant achievement for BWXT and the community of Parks Twp.," said Richard W. Loving, director of administration for BWX Technologies Inc., which held the NRC license for the site. The company needed the license as long as the NRC determined that contamination remained.

But environmental activist Patricia Ameno said the NRC designation doesn't matter because contamination from the hillside waste site can still "migrate" down to the former plant site through groundwater and other means.

"Newton's law is very applicable there. What goes uphill will go down -- and that waste site is still uphill," Ameno said.

BWX officials declined to comment yesterday on Ameno's claims of ongoing contamination in the area.

In 1994, Ameno spearheaded a class-action federal lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of people with wrongful death, personal injury or property damage claims based on the alleged radioactive contamination of air, water or land. Four years later, eight test plaintiffs (Ameno was not among them) won $36.7 million from Atlantic Richfield Co. and B&W, which operated the plants after Atlantic Richfield sold them in 1971.

During the trial, a doctor said 351 of Apollo's 1,895 residents, or nearly one-in-five, had been diagnosed with some form of cancer.

Company attorneys maintained radioactive emissions had been filtered out and that even if residents had been exposed, radiation levels were too low to cause cancer or other illnesses.

The verdict was never paid because a judge ordered a retrial after determining that she had wrongly allowed some evidence in the case. The retrial was delayed when B&W filed bankruptcy largely because of unrelated asbestos litigation the company faced.

Ameno's attorney, Fred Baron of Dallas, said the nuclear claims have been tentatively settled. Baron wouldn't comment on the size of the settlement, but said a U.S. bankruptcy judge in New Orleans is expected to approve it Oct. 1 along with the rest of the company's bankruptcy plan.

John Ameno Jr., the activist's brother, is also borough council president in Apollo, where officials plan to build a parking lot on the other plant site declared safe by the NRC seven years ago.