Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
5/8/2015
As EnergySolutions address issues in its Performance Assessment for the disposal of depleted uranium at its Clive, Utah facility, a new Utah activist group is advocating sending the material to Waste Control Specialists’ facility in Texas instead. Deadly Disposal, a group made up of private citizens, has launched an ad campaign against depleted uranium disposal in Utah, with advertisements appearing in local papers and group informational meetings popping up throughout the greater-Salt Lake City area. The group formed after members began to research depleted uranium and discovered its million year radioactivity shelf life, according to some members of the organization. “I do not want depleted uranium in Utah anywhere near my grandchildren or my grandchildren’s grandchildren,” said Debbie Don, a founding member of the group. “That’s how I got involved, as a concerned resident of Utah that does not want this material here forever.”
One member of the group has some history with Texas-based Waste Control Specialists, which is also working to provide DU disposal services. Janet Jenson, who has run some of the public information meetings the group has hosted, has legally represented WCS during government meetings in Utah on radioactive waste disposal, and WCS still holds a retainer on Jenson’s law firm, Jenson & Guelker P.C. “Through the process of observing for WCS, I became educated,” Jenson said. “This whole area of radiation waste is a very, very rarified area. If you are not in it, you don’t really follow it, which is why many people in Utah are unaware of what is going on here.” She added, “I learned and observed, and I’m horrified. I’m very passionate about this. Yes, I have represented WCS in the past, but this is a citizens’ group.” Both Jenson and WCS have denied, though, any direct relation between WCS and the Deadly Disposal group.
Texas as the Solution?
Instead of Utah, the group is proposing shipping the material to Waste Control Specialists. Deadly Disposal’s website includes a page dedicated solely to shipping the material to WCS instead of Utah. “Texas is prepared and licensed to take DU,” the website says. “If Texas wants it, the Department of Energy should send it there. A company called Waste Control Specialists has spent 10 years preparing and licensing a state-of-the-art facility in Andrews, Texas which is licensed and specially prepared to take Depleted Uranium. If they want it, and they are fully prepared and licensed to take it, the Department of Energy should send it to them!” The website even goes so far as to compare the two sites, calling WCS’s facility the “most robust low level waste facility ever built.”
EnergySolutions submitted Clive’s performance assessment for DU back in 2011 following the Utah Radiation Control Board’s 2010 decision to require a quantitative compliance period for DU out to 10,000 years, with a second qualitative review out to peak dose (approximately 2.5 million years). Subsequently, the state required additional information and a revised design for a DU disposal cell, which EnergySolutions resubmitted this past summer. Last month, Utah’s Department of Environmental Quality released its Safety Evaluation Report of EnergySolutions’ PA, finding it deficient in seven areas. EnergySolutions has asked for a suspension of the public comment period so it could address the problem areas within the PA.
‘I am Upset That Our Environmental Regulators Would Even Consider This’
Deadly Disposal joins other environmental groups within Utah in the fight against depleted uranium. Heal Utah, an environmental group based in Salt Lake City, has opposed the idea of depleted uranium disposal since it first emerged, ultimately succeeding in the suspension of shipments until the state could take a closer look at the project. Deadly Disposal, though, says its narrow focus on only depleted uranium brings something different than Heal brings. “If you look at Heal and other environmental groups out here, they can take on lots and lots of topics,” said Jenson. “We don’t. We are only working on depleted uranium. And we are only recently formed, because we were coming down to the wire with EnergySolutions’ ongoing, never-ending efforts to take depleted uranium. I am personally so outraged about that, and I am upset that our environmental regulators would even consider this.”
According to EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker, the company’s focus right now is addressing the issues with the PA to make the best possible safety case for depleted uranium. “EnergySolutions is focused on answering the eight unresolved issues expressed in the State of Utah Division of Radiation Control SER,” Walker said in an email. “We are aware of the ads, website and public meetings in Utah and have chosen to remain diligent in resolving the real issues related to DU disposal in supporting the Department of Energy on this important project.”
WCS Ready for DU Disposal
While the debate on DU disposal in Utah continues to rage on, WCS said it is ready and willing to begin disposing of depleted uranium. “WCS is fully licensed to dispose of depleted uranium,” WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald said. “Everything is in place, and we are ready to go. We are qualified to dispose of the DU waste at Portsmouth and the stuff in storage at EnergySolutions that can’t be disposed of there. We are licensed and approved by the state to dispose of that at our site. All that we are waiting for is the Department of Energy. They still need to complete the Environmental Impact Statement of depleted uranium at the WCS site.”
It remains unclear when DOE will complete that EIS for WCS. DOE did not return calls for comment this week on where it stands in the EIS process or when it expects to complete the report.
