***To read EnergySolutions' filing, click here ***

WASHINGTON (AP) -- EnergySolutions Inc., a Salt Lake City-based company that handles nuclear waste, filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of up to $500 million in stock.

The company said it intends to apply to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "ES."

The company didn't disclose how many shares will be offered, nor did it provide an estimated price range for the offering.

The company said it intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to pay employees and to repay outstanding debt, with the remainder being used for general corporate purposes.

Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS Investment Bank, Banc of America Securities LLC, Citigroup, D.A. Davidson & Co., Friedman Billings Ramsey, Lazard Capital Markets and Wedbush Morgan Securities are listed as underwriters for the offering.

EnergySolutions was formed last year by the merger of BNG America, Duratek, Envirocare of Utah and the D&D division of Scientech. It had net income of $34 million on revenue of $427 million for the year.

The company listed Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman and public-interest groups as risks to the operation of its radioactive-waste dump in Utah's west desert, which accounted for 44 percent of company revenues in 2006 and has 19 years of capacity left.

"If any such efforts to limit our Clive operations were successful, then our business would suffer. Even if these types of efforts are unsuccessful, public criticisms of our business resulting from these efforts could harm our reputation, and our stock price could suffer," a company disclosure said.

EnergySolutions dropped a request before state regulators last week to nearly double the capacity of the landfill in Clive, a railroad spur 72 miles west of Salt Lake City.

The move came as Huntsman agreed to rescind a threat to use Utah's veto power at the eight-state Northwest Interstate Low-Level Waste Compact - a regional nuclear waste regulator - to limit the waste the company can accept.

Vanessa Pierce, executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said EnergySolutions will never act in the public interest.

"With EnergySolutions' public offering, an army of anonymous investors will have a financial incentive to force even more radioactive garbage on unwilling communities like ours. It's a dirty business," she said.