Regulators pass rule on depleted uranium

SALT LAKE CITY — Despite assertions by EnergySolutions that the action is unnecessary, the Utah Radiation Control Board signed off on a new rule Tuesday that imposes additional restrictions on the disposal of depleted uranium.

The rule, which requires the Clive facility to conduct a performance assessment for disposal of the radioactive material, will be published May 1 and go into effect by June 1.

Tom Majette, the company's senior vice president, said EnergySolutions already has put in protections that are "sufficiently protective of human health, safety and the environment."

Under consideration since last summer and on the drafting board for months, the rule is intended to provide safeguards to deal with the radioactive material that falls within waste classification guidelines for disposal within the state.

Despite its classification as low-level radioactive waste, critics have voiced concerns that depleted uranium, as it decays, grows more radioactive with time. The unpredictably of geologic time-changes — such as the return of a Lake Bonneville — led opponents to question the ability to safely dispose of the material at the Clive facility.

EnergySolutions has expanded the depth of its cover for the material and installed radon detectors for what they say will still not exceed class A — or the lowest radiation classification — levels.

A shipment of depleted uranium awaits disposal in Tooele County while that site-specific performance analysis is done, and two more shipments that had been destined for Utah remain in limbo.

In other board action, members signed off on a policy statement in opposition to the practice of waste-blending, even while acknowledging that the waste does not pose "any unique health and safety issues" to the public beyond ordinary class A waste.

"It is what it is," said Amanda Smith, director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. "We already take this kind of waste; we already model for this kind of waste."

Board chairman Peter Jenkins said solicitation of technical information to justify a prohibition of the waste did not prove fruitful.

"We did not receive any indication that there is any different health or safety risk," Jenkins said. "To imply that there is some technical difference — that we are receiving all these ducks and someone sends a goose one day — that is not what is going on here."