Depleted uranium arrives in EnergySolutions' Clive facility from South Carolina

The first of three shipments of depleted uranium has arrived via rail at EnergySolutions' facility in Clive, Tooele County.

Company President Val Christensen made the announcement Monday and said the shipment arrived pursuant to the agreement reached late last week between Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and the U.S. Department of Energy, requiring EnergySolutions to put in additional safety measures before burying the material.

The 3,500 tons of radioactive waste arrived at 9 p.m. Sunday after being shipped by rail from the Savannah River site in South Carolina. Two additional shipments, which will bring the total amount of waste to 10,500 tons, are scheduled in the coming months as the company puts in new safeguards to ensure the material's safe disposal.

The compromise between Herbert and the DOE is not expected to delay those shipments. Instead of disposing of the material immediately, EnergySolutions is expanding the depth of the disposal site's cover and installing radon detectors.

In the interim, the material will remain above ground in containers.

Sunday's late-night arrival came after a week marked with a flurry of last-minute activity, including strident calls by HEAL Utah, an anti-nuclear grass-roots group, for the governor to mark the shipment "return to sender."

The group also had called on Herbert to ask the DOE to delay any shipment until Utah has in place permanent rules outlining new requirements for disposal. And now it is calling on the state to hold a public hearing on the issue.

Citing too many "unknowns" surrounding the radioactive material, HEAL Utah has said it is inappropriate to accept the waste until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has enacted its own site-specific storage conditions.

It wants a hearing on an EnergySolutions license condition Herbert's office has cited that would allow for the removal of depleted uranium if required studies confirm the waste is not safe for Utah. According to the group, there is practical concern that even if the material is shown to be unsafe for disposal in Utah, no other state will take it "and Utah could be left holding the radioactive bag forever, no matter what the science says," HEAL Utah policy director Christopher Thomas said in a statement. "It looks like the DOE may have outmaneuvered the governor on this one, and we've requested a public hearing to air this and other concerns."

Depleted uranium is the man-made byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, and unlike other radioactive material, its chemical composition changes over time, making it grow "hotter" in radioactivity. A cast-off from the Cold War era, stockpiles of depleted uranium have been awaiting disposal for decades.

The U.S. military has found multiple uses for the material, which is twice as dense as lead and can pierce armor. Controversy has been linked to those applications, however, because of concerns that exposure has made military personnel sick.

e-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com