Perception is everything

Is Utah the nation's dumping ground for contaminated waste?

As a Deseret Morning News report explained over the weekend, a lot of states like to use that claim when arguing against new radioactive waste disposal projects. People in Texas, Nevada and Tennessee all claim they are becoming the No. 1 dumping ground, just as Utahns, from the governor to the last environmentalist on the totem pole, have claimed the same thing from time to time.

The truth is difficult to pin down. But, really, the argument misses the point. The important thing isn't whether a state is No. 1 in radioactive waste disposal. It is whether other parts of the country automatically think of that state when they have something to dump. And it is whether that state has enough safeguards in place to protect its citizens from hazardous materials.

Because it is remote and filled with wide empty spaces that may not seem particularly beautiful to some, Utah is at risk of being seen as an ideal dumping ground. At the same time, lawmakers here have seemed reluctant to impose higher taxes on waste disposal.

But this is an issue in which image means more than reality.

Frankly, it would be hard to find an issue in which reason and sense get thumped more soundly by politics and public perception. The unpleasant truth is that modern society creates a lot of waste that contains radiation — everything from life-saving medical equipment to the luminescent dials on watches. And we create even worse wastes in order to provide power to a burgeoning population. Those things make life more pleasant, but the waste has got to go somewhere.

Preferably somewhere else, of course.

Envirocare, Utah's only commercial low-level radioactive waste dump, has a good record when it comes to disposing of the stuff. Even the proposal by Private Fuel Storage to dump tons of super-hot spent nuclear fuel rods on the Goshute Reservation could be done safely and without much impact to the environment.

But public perception should not be casually dismissed. Nor should arguments about the proper uses for Utah's fragile desert landscapes.

Utahns don't want hazardous wastes here. That's understandable. It is even commendable. This state has so much good to offer that it can't afford to allow too much of what people loathe and fear — even if those fears are sometimes irrational.

Gov. Mike Leavitt has said he won't allow Envirocare to accept waste that has a higher radioactive content. That is an appropriate position to take. He also strongly opposes the nuclear waste the Goshutes want. That, too, is a good position.

The U.S. government has options when it comes to the really hot stuff. It could reverse a 30-year-old policy and begin recycling spent fuel rods, for instance.

The less dangerous stuff, meanwhile, can be stored at any of a number of places nationwide. It doesn't have to come here.

Right now, polls generally show that people don't think of hazardous wastes when they think of Utah. What a shame if they ever did.