Sinclair said he can't be sure whether the compact, if it had been given the chance to review past NRC license applications, would have opposed previous shipments of small amounts of foreign radioactive waste to Utah. There are cases, he noted, where a foreign country is involved in a process that generates radioactive waste, which could end up being attributed to a U.S. source and thereby acceptable for disposal by EnergySolutions.

Utah, the compact, NRC and EnergySolutions are all waiting for a federal judge to decide whether the Northwest Compact can assert any authority over proposals to store foreign waste at the Clive facility.

Sinclair noted EnergySolutions has been following state and federal regulations as the company has understood them and that EnergySolutions has done nothing wrong. NRC officials said Tuesday EnergySolutions has been accessible and transparent as it submits applications to import foreign materials for processing and disposal in the U.S.

In the meantime, Utah regulators don't have a statute to exclude foreign-generated low-level radioactive waste from being dumped in the state. And it appears that only last year did the NRC begin copying Utah Radiation Control Division director Dane Finerfrock on NRC license applications to store foreign-generated radioactive waste at the Clive site. Finerfrock was copied last December on an application the NRC received in 2006. Finerfrock said Tuesday he doesn't know if there are other NRC applications regarding small amounts of foreign waste that he wasn't copied on.

If the NRC knew of a "significant" amount of foreign radioactive waste being disposed of in Utah, the NRC would have done more than just copy the state on the license applications, according to Steve Demek, an NRC supervisor for export/import licensing.

"We would ask for their views on it," Demek said.

He considers up to 1,600 tons of waste coming from Italy a "significant" amount. But Demek was unable to say Tuesday how much the small amounts were from other countries that had already been disposed of in Utah.

Finerfrock said the NRC license applications to dump the waste in Clive have come from EnergySolutions or from other U.S. companies processing radioactive foreign materials. Those other companies, in some cases without EnergySolutions' knowledge, sometimes say on their application that they intend to dispose of the waste in Utah. Finerfrock said in the latter case that EnergySolutions isn't required to apply for a separate license with the NRC to dispose of the foreign-generated radioactive waste in Utah.

Finerfrock said it's his division's responsibility to know how much low-level radioactive waste is being dumped at the Clive site, what type of waste it is, how it's being disposed of and whether all of that complies with the license approved by the state for EnergySolutions. The shipping manifest does not always list who generated the original waste before processing and possibly incineration or what country it came from.

"No, we would not have known that this particular barrel of waste came from Canada," Finerfrock said as an example.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com