<!--subtitle--><!--byline-->The Salt Lake Tribune

Competitors of EnergySolutions are being interviewed by the U.S. Justice Department about antitrust allegations being raised against the Salt Lake City-based company

The Weapons Complex Monitor, a newsletter of the nuclear cleanup industry, said federal investigators have spoken with at least two competing companies in the waste-treatment business. Perma-fix Environmental Services Inc. is an Atlanta-based nuclear-waste processing company, and Studsvik Corp. is a Swedish company with two low-level waste processing facilities in Tennessee.

The industry newsletter says that officials from both companies and EnergySolutions were questioned last month about the Utah
"The Department of Justice contacted us, inquiring about the nature of our structure and the contract arrangements in our industry," EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker told the newsletter, "and we provided information in response to those questions."

The company did not return calls Thursday seeking comment, and the Department of Justice has a policy of neither confirming nor denying questions about its inquiries.

But Studsvik General Counsel Joseph DiCamillo confirmed that his company met with the Justice Department.

"Yes, we have had an interview with the department with respect to the low-level waste market," he said, "and the department had questions about EnergySolutions' role in the market."

The investors who own EnergySolutions, including President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Creamer, are in the midst of trying to take the company public. The owners, who also face an antitrust review as part of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission review, have asked the SEC to allow issuance of $500 million in stock so the money can be used to help pay off money owed to employees and to repay outstanding debt of more than $764 million.

EnergySolutions is best-known in Utah for owning and operating a mile-square radioactive and hazardous waste landfill about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City. The landfill gives the Utah company enormous leverage over commercial radioactive waste disposal throughout the United States. Of the two other radioactive landfills, only one is open to the majority of states and that one is also owned by EnergySolutions.

In its push to lead the U.S. market in all aspects of nuclear waste, the company has expanded into new business lines, including cleanup and nuclear decontamination and decommissioning.

Three weeks ago, the U.S. Energy Department handed the UtahMoab and disposing it at a soon-to-be-created disposal site at Crescent Junction. Justice Department about antitrust allegations being raised against the Salt Lake City-based company. company's possible involvement in anticompetitive practices. company a $98.4 million, four-year contract for removing 16 million tons of uranium tailings and contaminated soil from the banks of the Colorado River near