WASHINGTON — If the Utah company EnergySolutions is allowed to import large amounts of low-level radioactive waste from Italy, the United States could become a nuclear garbage dump for the world, say critics, including U.S. Reps. Jim Matheson and Bart Gordon.

"I recognize that small amounts of waste have been permitted entry into the U.S. in the past; however, encouraging other nations to actively pursue disposal options in the U.S. seems shortsighted at best," Matheson, D-Utah, wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Dale Klein, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Opposition in Utah has been fierce at the grass-roots level, and the state's Radiation Control Board is also drafting a letter to Congress and the NRC.

Federal agencies, too, have pointed out concerns that the world in general is unprepared to deal with accumulating nuclear waste at all levels.

• Only 10 of 18 nations surveyed last year have disposal options for low-level nuclear waste, and none has options for all classes of such waste, according to the Government Accountability Office.

• According to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission analysis, the EnergySolutions plan is 25 times bigger than the largest previous import from outside North America.

"If this massive quantity from Italy is accepted, it just blows the doors wide open for nuclear waste to come in from all over the world," says Tom Clements, Southeast nuclear campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth, an environmental group in Washington.

If approved, the company would ship up to 20,000 tons of metal piping, sludge, wood, contaminated clothing and other mildly radioactive material from Italian nuclear-power plants to Tennessee, process most of it, then dispose of the remainder in Utah. It would be by far America's largest import of nuclear waste.

The proposal, which entered a 30-day public-comment period on Feb. 11, is gathering opposition from environmentalists, regulators and members of Congress. It would not only pave the way for more such imports, critics say, but also give nations less incentive to take care of their own nuclear waste.

"The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has an obligation to deal with the waste generated in this country first and not accept foreign waste that fills up existing sites," Clements said.

Company's response

For its part, EnergySolutions says critics misrepresent how much material would be ultimately disposed of in Utah. Most material would be recycled or incinerated at its plant in Tennessee. Just 8 percent — about 1,600 tons — of the original volume would travel to Utah, the company wrote in a letter to the NRC.