Utah v. EnergySolutions is going into overtime. State officials will join a pair of regional radioactive waste compacts to appeal a dangerous U.S. District Court decision that opened the door to EnergySolution's Tooele County dump to low-level radioactive waste from Italy. For the sake of Utah's burgeoning tourism industry and the nation's nuclear power industry, hopefully the ball will bounce our way.
The state, in correspondence filed with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month, announced its intent to appeal the court ruling that stripped radioactive waste compacts of their ability to regulate privately-owned disposal facilities within their bounds. That decision, if it stands and Congress fails to forbid radioactive waste imports, could turn Utah into the world's dumping ground.
Utah also asked the NRC to delay a decision on EnergySolutions' license application to import waste from decommissioned Italian nuclear power plants until the lawsuit is settled. It would be the logical thing to do, erasing scenarios in which Italian waste would become orphaned on our shores, or EnergySolutions would be required to remove the materials from its Utah dump and ship them back to Italy.
EnergySolutions, which filed the lawsuit after the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste Management voted to ban the Italian waste, takes a different tack. It has asked the NRC to act on its licensing request, which was set aside pending the original court ruling. The company claims the issue has been "resolved" and a successful appeal is only a "remote possibility."
Unlike EnergySolutions administrators, NRC officials should not be presumptuous. They should stay in their seats until the game plays out in court. And Congress should get off the bench and promptly approve the Radioactive Import Deterrence Act, which is cosponsored by Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.
The RID Act would wisely prohibit the importation of radioactive waste and reserve this nation's dwindling disposal space for domestic waste, a necessity in light of proposals to build new nuclear power plants and the eventual decommissioning of aging plants, which will increase the country's waste stream. Plus, common sense dictates that low-level radioactive waste is not a commodity, rather, a dangerous material that should remain in the country of origin.
Congress should also act to restore the right of radioactive waste compacts to control the flow of waste into their regions, regardless of whether the disposal facility is privately held or publicly owned.