Nuclear waste left over from the initial development of the atomic bomb will make its way across the United States through Vicksburg, U.S. Department of Energy officials said today, the anniversary of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in 1945.

A series of 60 to 120 shipments of scrap clothes, tools and lab equipment contaminated by manmade isotopes will leave the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to be stored in a half-mile-deep vault in New Mexico at the government’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

“The route is through I-20,” DOE spokesman Walter Perry said, adding that published reports Tuesday of the 74,000-cubic-foot load passing through Arkansas were incorrect.

Shipments are to begin in September, pending approval by the Environmental Protection Agency, Perry said.

Once on the road, specially designed tractor-trailers escorted by state highway patrol officers and driven by contract drivers with New Mexico-based Washington TruSolutions will take the load along Interstates 75 and 24 in southeast Tennessee, then connect with Interstate 59 in northeast Alabama, said company spokesman Bobby St. John.

The vehicles will hit Interstate 20 at Birmingham and continue through Mississippi and Louisiana, then connect with U.S. 285 at Pecos, Texas, on their way to the WIPP facility near Carlsbad, St. John said.

Much of the material from Oak Ridge does not require special gear, but some protective shielding. Officials in Mississippi indicated measures are in place to protect the public from any incident involving the waste.

“We have a computer tracking system monitoring every move, every second,” Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Katherine Crowell said. “If anything happens, we will be able to respond.”

Multiple road construction projects along Interstate 20 will not need to be altered by the movement of the material.

“It’s low-level waste,” MDOT Central District Commissioner Dick Hall said. “It’s less dangerous than a tanker full of gasoline.”

DOE will spend about $20 million shipping similar material from nuclear weapons sites nationwide over the next five years. About 6,800 truckloads of material have arrived at WIPP from sites in Washington state, Idaho, New Mexico and South Carolina. Shipments from Oak Ridge and from the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago are next.

DOE and its contractors have held public education events in New Mexico to stress the safety of the operation. Two rigs displayed Monday showed three large, silo-shaped containers for less radioactive material. Higher-rated loads will be stored in containers lined with steel and lead.