SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Utah's Radiation Control Board is moving forward with efforts to require a company that wants to dispose of depleted uranium in the state to first submit a report confirming that additional safeguards will work. The board voted Tuesday to develop new rules requiring EnergySolutions Inc. to complete a "site performance assessment" before additional depleted uranium comes to Utah. The rule-making process is expected to take up to 120 days.

"Continuing on the [Utah Radiation Control] board's current pathway could result in expensive and time consuming adjudication and well as litigation," says EnergySolutions' attorney, Craig Galli.

"The board needs to be prepared for a legal challenge because I think EnergySolutions is tenacious and it will stop at nothing to make their shareholders a buck. That said, the board exists to protect our health and safety. If they're not willing to do that, they're not up for the job and we should have somebody else in there," says Vanessa Piece from the group, HEAL Utah.

Nearly 15,000 drums of the low-level radioactive waste were slated to start arriving in December at the company's facility about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City.

But the company does not expect the updated assessment to be done until December 2010.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)