Legislation that would ease the path for acceptance of depleted uranium at a Utah radioactive waste disposal facility passed into law on Monday.
Utah House Bill 220 became law without signature from Gov. Gary Herbert (R), according to an update on the state Legislature website.
Herbert told The Salt Lake Tribune he allowed the bill to enter into law “because it’s going to put protections in place for Clive,” Herbert said.
Salt Lake City-based nuclear services provider EnergySolutions operates its low-level waste disposal site at Clive, in Tooele County.
Passage of the bill opens the door for EnergySolutions to use the Clive facility for disposal of 700,000 to 750,000 metric tons of ground-up and powdered depleted uranium from former uranium enrichment operations at U.S. Department of Energy sites at Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.
Depleted uranium is initially classified as Class A low-level waste, but it decays into more radioactive forms that would eventually become Class B and Class C. Utah law only allows for storage of Class A wastes in the state. But the new law designates radioactive materials in the class in which they are initially accepted for disposal, without factoring potential future increases in radioactivity.
Herbert’s office previously said that changes to the bill addressed his concerns. Those revisions included requiring that a facility pass a “performance assessment” on its ability to protect the public safety and health. The federal government would eventually have to assume responsibility for the depleted uranium.
