Bottom line is our health

EnergySolutions and its apparent front groups — like Jeremy Roberts (Readers' Forum, March 15) and the Support Alliance for the Environment — like to point out that they support the medical industry by providing a place to dispose of radioactively contaminated medical equipment and supplies. But it's important to put this claim into perspective. Last year, medical waste represented less than half of 1 percent of the total quantity of nuclear waste EnergySolutions took.

Everyone recognizes that radiation has medical applications that can treat and cure cancer. If EnergySolutions only took medical waste, its existing facility would have enough capacity for another 5,000 years — without any new expansions. The truth is that EnergySolutions' bread and butter is the nuclear power industry and cleanup of nuclear weapons sites — in other words, other states' nuclear pollution.

Christopher Thomas

policy director

HEAL Utah