Utah OKs continued disposal of depleted uranium

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s Radiation Control Board Tuesday refused to block the disposal of depleted uranium in the state, clearing the way for shipments next month of the low-level radioactive waste.

The board’s 8-3 decision Tuesday removes any obstacles to EnergySolutions Inc.’s plans to dispose of depleted uranium waste from the Savannah River, a former nuclear weapons complex in South Carolina, at the company’s facility about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City.

The company plans to transfer the waste in 55-gallon drums, sending a total of about 15,000 of the drums to the Utah site by early 2011. The exact tonnage of the waste wasn’t immediately available, but it’s part of an estimated 46,000 metric tons of the material the company could to handle from several Department of Energy sites over the next five years.

An environmental group had asked the board to place a moratorium on disposing depleted uranium until the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission adopts more stringent rules for the material, which will likely be completed in 2012.

Depleted uranium, a result of the uranium enrichment process, is classified as the least dangerous type of low-level radioactive waste. However, the material is different than other such waste because it becomes more radioactive over time for up to a million years.

The state’s radiation board is currently in the process of developing new rules for how large quantities of the waste should be disposed of.

The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah had been asking for a moratorium since May, but the board delayed action so it could hear from Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff on Tuesday.

The NRC staff told the board that EnergySolutions is conducting itself within the law in disposing of the material under current regulations.

EnergySolutions contends it has safely disposed of the material in the past and there’s no reason to fear new shipments while new rules are being developed.

In July, the company voluntarily requested that its state license be amended so all future shipments of depleted uranium would be subject to stricter disposal guidelines. The company says that license amendment would likely meet or exceed any new rules federal regulators would impose.

Vanessa Pierce, executive director for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, decried the board’s decision as bowing to a politically influential company. She said there there’s no guarantee the company won’t find a way to avoid complying with new regulations.

“Once the DU (depleted uranium) comes here it’s going to stay here whether or not it should have come here in the first place,” she said. “Why would we allow that?”

Besides the South Carolina depleted uranium, the company could also win contracts to dispose of material from U.S. Department of Energy sites in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Paducah, Ky., and Portsmouth, Ohio.