PLEASANTON, Calif. - Environmental activists criticized a decision to transport a truckload of 10 spent nuclear fuel rods from Pennsylvania to a San Francisco Bay area plant.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that it has approved a commercial shipment of nuclear rods to General Electric's Vallecitos Nuclear Center south of Pleasanton. The center will test whether the uranium fuel remains fit to burn for electricity.

There has been no local notification of the shipment, only a notice on the commission's Web site earlier this month.

"It raises a lot of questions regarding the scope of what they're doing," said Marylia Kelley, director of the watchdog group Tri-Valley Communities Against Radioactive Environment. "It's altogether too secretive."

The rods - 12 feet long and a half-inch in diameter - are from the Philadelphia Electric Co.'s nuclear power plant in Limerick, Pa. They will be protected by a 23-ton steel cask hauled by a tractor-trailer and escorted by armed guard, the commission said. "We adhere to regulatory requirements," said Pleasanton plant representative Lynn Wallis.