From Deseret News archives:
Huntsman stresses: No hotter N-waste
Anti-nuclear activist Jason Groenewold has called for Huntsman take action to prevent any material from coming in that is hotter than the Class A waste Envirocare of Utah disposes at its Tooele County site. Although B and C are considered low-level radioactive, they are more dangerous than Class A waste.
Charles Judd, president of Cedar Mountain Environmental Inc., a planned disposal facility in Tooele County, has said the company might seek to import B and C waste. The property, where no construction has yet taken place, is adjacent to Envirocare, about halfway between Salt Lake City and Wendover.
B and C waste may not be disposed of in Utah without state permits and specific approval from the Legislature and governor. In a Nov. 17 press release, Huntsman took a strong stand against importation of waste hotter than Class A.
Groenewold, director of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, called for Huntsman to sign an executive order once he is in office to prevent that importation.
"Utah's going to be continue to be targeted as a nuclear waste dumping ground as long as we leave the door open," he said.
Once he is sworn in, he said, Huntsman will have the power to prevent the waste arriving here for disposal. "All it takes is his signature" on an executive order.
"Huntsman gets the key to the office on Jan. 3. He could kill this thing on day one," he added.
Groenewold is concerned about the issue because Class B and C wastes are "hundreds to thousands of times more radioactive than Class A waste," he said, citing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He said the NRC estimates that a 20-minute exposure to Class C material without proper protection "is enough to cause a lethal dose of radiation. . . . It gives you a sense of how hot we're talking."
Huntsman made it clear Wednesday he is not backing down on the waste issue. His position is the same as it was during the campaign, he said in a Morning News telephone interview.
"That is, I will use whatever force of office I have to keep B and C waste out of the state," he said.
A law is already in place with safeguards, he noted.
If he needs to take action to "effectively nullify" any attempt to bring B and C waste into the Beehive State, Huntsman added, he will. Meanwhile, he needs to review options to accomplish that, checking his legal tools.
"I would want to understand what I had at my disposal," Huntsman said.
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
