Amount proposed for import is small, and EnergySolutions argues that waste is waste
By Judy Fahys
Salt Lake Tribune
In some ways, the request truly does not amount to much. That would be just six railroad cars during a period the Salt Lake City company expects about 8,000. And, piled up, it would barely create a bump at its specialized landfill that covers an entire square mile near Clive, in Tooele County.
So, why has the idea created such an uproar?
For many of those familiar with the industry, nothing less than the whole system of managing low-level nuclear waste is on the line - the ability for states to say "no" to Italian waste just as they can to waste from Iowa or Idaho. In the big picture, they argue, nothing less than a national policy on government control over nuclear material is at stake.
"If the compacts don't have authority to exclude waste, then the whole compact system is in jeopardy," said Leonard Slosky, director of the organization that manages waste in the Rocky Mountain region.
The EnergySolutions proposal to import 20,000 tons of waste from Italy - reduced to 1,600 tons after it is processed in Tennessee and arrives in Utah - has drawn plenty of opposition. Nearly 1,700 people have written the Nuclear Regulatory Commission opposing the company's application.
But for the company, which touts its disposal facility as a marquee selling point to customers, potentially lucrative foreign contracts are on the line. The company is also expected to announce first-quarter results when the financial markets close today.
The forum where these debates are expected to play out next is a federal courtroom.
That's where the fast-growing Salt Lake City nuclear services company hopes to persuade a U.S. District Court judge that a regional panel called the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste has no authority over EnergySolutions' Utah landfill.
Congress set up the system in the 1980s to encourage states to work together to build disposal sites. Only two regions did, but EnergySolutions, then called Envirocare of Utah, signed an "arrangement," or contract, with the compact in 1991 that allowed the Tooele site to accept waste as long as it came from outside the eight-state Northwest region. The idea was to protect the disposal site in Hanford, Wash., for the waste from member states.
On Thursday, compact members tightened the contract with EnergySolutions to make it clear that foreign waste is not permitted.
"We plan to send [federal regulators] a letter indicating no arrangement currently exists that would provide foreign waste access to the Northwest Compact region," said Mike Garner, the compact's executive director, adding that the law requires such an arrangement before any waste could come into the region and be disposed of at the EnergySolutions site.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is reviewing the EnergySolutions import request, had not officially heard from the Northwest Compact on Friday.
Licensing official Steve Dembeck said it's not clear what happens next with the import request.
"It's too early for us to act at this time."
To John Urgo of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah [HEAL], an environmental group, the compact's action on Thursday was welcomed.
"It confirms that it was never the intention of state or federal law to open up Utah to the world's nuclear waste."
In Congress, U.S. Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah and Bart Gordon of Tennessee have proposed legislation that would ban low-level nuclear waste imports.
"The statements from all the stakeholders and their claims about who has authority - it just simply validates the need for my bill," said Matheson. "I'm going to keep pushing on this hard."
Meanwhile, industry and regulators are closely watching the outcome too.
The company has argued three points in its lawsuit:
* That the regional compact has no authority over the privately owned EnergySolutions site.
* That foreign waste is the federal government's job - not a compact's.
* Any restrictions on foreign waste violate the Commerce Clause of the U. S. Constitution.
It is the last two issues that have many worried behind the scenes.
If EnergySolutions were to win on either of those grounds, that would mean none of the nation's three disposal sites for low-level waste could close the gates to foreign waste - all of it less radioactive than spent reactor fuel and other forms of high-level waste.
And that sets up the odd situation in which some low-level waste generated within the states has no place to go for disposal, while waste from more than 100 other nations would be free to use the sites.
EnergySolutions declined to comment for this article. But in statements made to other news media, company officials describe the importance of this fight.
At last week's compact meeting, the company's general counsel, Val John Christensen, downplayed public concern about the import request, calling the reaction "emotional." He said the waste from Italy and waste from U.S. generators is scientifically indistinguishable.
Other company officials have continued to stress the view that, as a company fact sheet to the Northwest Compact says, the push for nuclear power in the world means "we must recognize we are one world."
Steve Creamer, the company's chief executive officer, said in a recent televised interview that the Italian waste request is a demonstration of the company's commitment to a better world.
"I mean, I think what we're trying to do is be good stewards of the Earth and state lines were drawn," he said. "I mean, is Italy waste any different than New Jersey or California waste? I mean, how do you draw the lines?"
