Envirocare still on track to store hotter wastes

Envirocare opponents may have won a moral victory, but at the end of the day they had lost the battle.

The Utah Radiation Control Board on Tuesday ruled that Envirocare's application to store hotter nuclear wastes will remain on track for gubernatorial and legislative approval, even if the board agreed with opponents who argued the company had not adequately addressed safety and transportation concerns.

"It's kind of like they said, 'You're right, but you lose,' " said Jason Groenewold, director of Families Against Incinerator Risk, the principal group behind an appeal over Envirocare's license.

Opponents were certainly not reveling in a moral victory following the all-day hearing. Rather, they were talking about what to do next, including whether or not to file a lawsuit to overturn the Department of Environmental Quality's approval of Envirocare's application to store Class B and C wastes, mostly medical byproducts and those from decommissioned nuclear power plants.

Envirocare has indicated it will not, at least at this time, seek the approval of the governor and Legislature for the license, a condition required by Utah law for any radioactive and hazardous waste landfill.

But it has spent millions getting its application approved by state regulators, and the company isn't about to throw up its hands and walk away from the license application it has worked years to get. In July 2001, Bill Sinclair, the director of the Division of Radiation Control, approved the license application.

"(Envirocare's president) has made it clear that we don't plan to pursue B and C wastes right now until the citizens of Utah support it, and that includes the Legislature and governor," said Envirocare vice president Ken Alkema.

Opponents argued the board should throw out Envirocare's application altogether, targeting the soft underbelly of Envirocare's application: safety concerns over the transportation and storage of hotter wastes.

Disaster response experts from Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties told the board they knew nothing about Envirocare's emergency response plans in the event of an accident. And they said Envirocare had never even contacted them about contingency plans.

Envirocare argued it didn't need to contact agencies outside of Tooele County, while opponents questioned the wisdom of transporting low-level nuclear waste through the Wasatch Front without local emergency officials even knowing how to respond in the event of an accident.