SALT LAKE CITY — Is it akin to a chocolate chip cookie, a pot of Earl Grey tea or a sugar cookie?

On the issue of radioactive "waste blending," members of the Utah Radiation Control Board were presented Tuesday with a smorgasbord of food analogies to help them as they grapple with the question of imposing stricter disposal guidelines on the material.

EnergySolutions senior vice president Tom Magette told the board that so-called blended waste represents the uniformity of a sugar cookie, not a chocolate chip cookie peppered with higher radioactive waste resins.

The chocolate chip analogy, he said, has been put forth by competitor Studsvick and other critics such as HEAL Utah, which have come forward to assert disposing of the blended waste at the EnergySolutions' Clive facility unacceptably increases the levels of radioactivity the company is licensed to accept.

What makes settling on a particular menu item problematic in this case is that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is pondering the same question and has yet to issue "guidance" or advice, or even a firm rule on the storage requirements.

Although the board issued a policy statement earlier this year saying it was opposed to the practice for the purpose of "diluting" the waste, at the same time it acknowledged it presents no greater risk to public health or the environment than what Utah is currently licensed to accept.

But HEAL's policy director Christopher Thomas said accepting the waste has significant implications for Utah, most notably the ambiguities on what radiation hazards the blended waste poses because it is a mixture of material not classified until it goes into the ground.

The state prohibits by law the disposal of the "hotter" waste material called Class B and Class C waste. Those resins that would be handled at an out-of-state facility fall into that category, but as they are processed with the lowest category of radioactive waste, Class A, they become "blended."

Magette countered that all waste — Class A or not — contains different levels of radioactivity.

"The given activity on one bead (or resin) is not relevant," he said, stressing the radioactive levels of a container of waste are configured on a mathematical average, not individual calibrations of radioactive activity.

Thomas said rather than the cookie analogy, blended waste presents a radiological hazard more like a layer cake, with the hotter resins possibly being able to migrate in concentrations to the top to form "hot" frosting.

Magette rejected that notion and said even with processing, the more radioactive resins don't rise to the top and the average of radiation concentration remains the same.

With the NRC decision still pending, the waste blending issue is likely to remain on the menu of the Radiation Control Board for some time.