Board votes against N-waste ban

The state Radiation Control Board on Tuesday voted against a potential moratorium to prohibit EnergySolutions from continuing to accept depleted uranium at its Clive waste-management facility.

After considerable discussion and advice from the Utah Attorney General's Office, the 13-member panel decided against the moratorium proposed by a Utah environmental group.

Some members in the audience of about 75 people voiced their displeasure at the board's decision, hoping to have the panel prevent the company from bringing more depleted uranium — or DU, as it's called — into the state, including the head of the organization that made the moratorium proposal.

"We're not regulating EnergySolutions. EnergySolutions is running the state of Utah," Vannessa Pierce, executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, told the Deseret News.

"From their efforts to repeal the rights given to us from the Northwest Compact, to their legal threats on this issue, too many of our policymakers have been threatened into silence by the power of their legal and financial wrath," Pierce added.

The panel did, however, approve an amendment to EnergySolutions' current license to manage Class A low-level radioactive waste, which includes depleted uranium.

The amendment would require the company to retroactively remediate any depleted uranium that is brought into the Clive site if federal regulators eventually decide to change how DU is to be stored and managed. The NRC is expected to address the handling of DU during its rulemaking process scheduled to begin in September 2010 and take about two years.

While the board's decision was disappointing to some in the audience, the ruling was praised by EnergySolutions.

"We're very pleased that the board decided not to impose a moratorium on disposal of depleted uranium," said Jill Sigal, executive vice president of communications and government relations for EnergySolutions. "We think that the NRC made a very compelling case that there is no immediate public health and safety threat from the disposal of depleted uranium."

In August, the Energy Department reported that almost 15,000 drums of DU from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina would be shipped to Utah, with the first shipment scheduled to arrive next month.

This week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding a series of meetings in Salt Lake City to discuss how much depleted uranium should come to Utah and how it should be stored. Specifically, the agency will look at how EnergySolutions should dispose of and store tons of depleted uranium in Utah's western desert.

Currently, the company's license allows for the storage of unlimited quantities of depleted uranium, a Class A low-level waste product. Critics argue that storing such large amounts of radioactive waste could pose a serious environmental hazard for centuries into the future, but most people have little idea of what depleted uranium is and what the risks are of storing it in Utah.

The NRC stated during the meeting that the health and safety hazards presented by depleted uranium is minimal, which drew criticism from environmentalists.

Sigal stressed that EnergySolutions is committed to doing whatever is necessary to ensure the company stores any depleted uranium brought into the Clive facility in the safest manner possible.

"We will comply with the NRC regulations today, tomorrow and in the future," she said.

e-mail: jlee@desnews.com