By John Stang
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) said Monday he allowed a bill to become law without his signature that would ease the path for acceptance and storage of depleted uranium in the state. The law becomes effective March 28.
“I have had reservations about how this legislation came forward. Nonetheless, I recognize the need to address challenges dealing with modifying standards of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission by creating a robust site-based performance assessment standard for Utah. This bill does that. … It will be more difficult for depleted uranium to come into Utah than under current law,” Herbert wrote Monday to the Republican leaders of the Nevada Legislature.
Herbert originally questioned the bill, but said changes now require the federal government to accept long-term care and maintenance of the imported wastes if the company storing the material goes out of business. Another change requires the disposal site to pass a “performance assessment” — essentially a technical analysis — on its ability to protect the public safety.
The legislation — House Bill 220, from Rep. Carl Albrecht (R) — would affect EnergySolutions’ ability to accept depleted uranium at its Clive waste facility. Previously, Utah law allowed only the least-hazardous Class A wastes to be stored in the state, while banning the storage of the more radioactive Class B and Class C wastes.
While depleted uranium is initially Class A, it decays into more radioactive forms that would eventually become Class B and Class C.
The Salt Lake City-based nuclear services company contributed $44,440 to 38 state legislators last year, while 43 lawmakers received a total of $67,700 in 2017, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune.
EnergySolutions did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, the nongovernmental Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah) said it “appreciates the efforts of Governor Herbert to include some safeguards in HB 220 … but we are disappointed that this bill has become law. This law may make it easier for EnergySolutions to bring over 800,000 metric tons of the long-lived radioactive waste known as depleted uranium into Utah.”
EnergySolutions is eyeing importing 700,000 to 750,000 metric tons of ground-up and powdered depleted uranium from former uranium enrichment at U.S. Department of Energy sites at Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky., according to the state government, citing a smaller figure than HEAL Utah. The depleted uranium would be buried at Clive. But that first requires completion of a performance assessment of the facility by the state Department of Environmental Quality,
The bill would not affect last year’s plan by EnergySolutions to accept and store depleted uranium extracted from special U.S. Army bullets, which was estimated to amount to 667 cubic yards of Class A low-level radioactive waste annually for four years. The Utah Waste Management and Radiation Control Board unanimously rejected that proposal last October because that depleted uranium from the bullets appeared more hazardous than expected.
EnergySolutions operates two of the four U.S. facilities licensed for disposal of low-level radioactive waste, at Clive and Barnwell, S.C. All four facilities are in Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreement states, which assume regulatory authority over certain uses of radioactive materials.
The Clive site already stores depleted uranium oxide powder in casks in below-grade cells, which is also a separate issue from the depleted uranium bullets. The facility has accepted 26,500 cubic yards of uranium dioxide powder so far from Department of Energy sites.
