BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Regular shipments of radioactive waste left over from the Cold War era may begin this fall with trucks moving through northwest Georgia en route to New Mexico.

The estimated 60 to 120 truckloads a year of waste from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee will be buried nearly a half-mile deep in an underground salt formation. The transports to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., are expected to take three years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The shipments are awaiting approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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The trucks on the 27-hour, 1,400-mile trip would move about 74,000 cubic feet of waste — 18,122 barrels — out of Oak Ridge. The route would take the shipments through northwest Georgia, said Walter Perry, a Department of Energy spokesman in Oak Ridge. The trucks would travel down Interstate 59 in the northwest corner of the state and into Alabama, then on to I-20 bound for New Mexico.

The Energy Department has made a public education tour through cities in the Southern states affected by the shipments, including Trenton in northwest Georgia.

The waste includes castoff items used in nuclear weapons production during the Cold War era. It has been stored in Oak Ridge since then.

The DOE will spend $20 million over the next five years just on shipping the waste. Waste from weapons factories has been buried at WIPP since 1999.

The South already is a course for trucks hauling radioactive materials. Since 2001, more than 900 shipments of radioactive waste have traveled on I-20 from the Savannah River Project in South Carolina to New Mexico.

There have been no incidents along the highway, said Bobby St. John of Washington TRU Solutions, the operating contractor for the transports.

St. John said his company is waiting for final approval from the Environmental Protection Agency, and trucking of the waste should begin late this year.

"We leave it up to the individual states if they want to provide escorts for the trucks. That's at their discretion," St. John said.

Hoover, Ala., Fire Chief Tom Bradley had his firefighters attended the demonstration so they would recognize the trucks.

"All my guys are hazmat (hazardous materials) trained," Bradley said. "We want to be sure that if there is any new information that they will be in the know."

Bradley's department keeps tabs on all trucks carrying radioactive waste that pass through his city.

The containers that house the radioactive materials are "practically indestructible," Bradley said. The trucks are constantly tracked by the DOE communications satellite.

"If there is a problem, all we do is secure the scene because there is no way these containers will leak any radiation," the chief said.

The waste materials will be housed inside stainless-steel, lead-lined containers mounted on trailers of semis for the shipping.

The waste includes clothes, lab equipment, tools and scrap — some with a half-life of 10,000 years.

Chris Wells of the Southern States Energy Board, which formulates the routes for the waste and funnels money to states that the trucks pass through, said the transports are part of a 30-year program with the ultimate goal of disposing of nuclear weapons byproducts from the Cold War.

States that make up the energy board consortium apply for grants for equipment and personnel to oversee the shipments. Alabama gets $150,000 a year.

— Staff writer Harold Weaver contributed to this article.