If you combine hamburger and soy beans and call it a vegetable burger, you're doing vegetarians a disservice. The meat is still part of the patty.

Likewise, if the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows the nuclear industry to blend assorted low-level radioactive wastes to achieve a mix that unfairly qualifies for disposal in the Beehive State, Utahns will be done a disservice. Like meat in a fake vegeburger, the hotter wastes that we prohibit would still be a part of the mix.

State regulators and elected leaders have made it crystal clear through statute, rules and speech that Utah is only willing to accept Class A waste, the most benign category. The NRC should honor that wish instead of trying to foist hotter Class B and C wastes on the state through blending. But that's the effort afoot, as the NRC contemplates a policy change that would benefit the nuclear power industry and Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions -- at Utah's expense.

Low-level wastes fall into three classifications: C, which is considered dangerous for 500 years; B, which remains hazardous for 300 years; and A, which loses its radiological hazard after 100 years. Mixing hotter Class B and C wastes with the lower-hazard Class A waste does nothing to alleviate the danger that the hotter wastes pose. In fact, the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah say blending could triple the amount of radioactivity in the waste Utah receives.

But B and C waste has been piling up at the nation's nuclear power plants with nowhere to go after the three-state Atlantic Compact closed its South Carolina disposal facility to waste from nonmember states in 2008. Obviously, the industry is anxiously seeking new disposal options. And it has a co-conspirator in EnergySolutions, which stands to gain business at its low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Tooele County if the NRC foolishly overturns its long-standing blending ban.

So, open your mouths, Utahns. You and your elected representatives either have to convince federal regulators not to allow blending, or prepare to swallow most of the Class B and C waste that 36 states have to offer.

It's not a done deal. NRC staff, while recommending limited blending, provided the board with other options, including maintaining the status quo. All parties, including Utah regulators who oppose blending, will weigh-in at an NRC board meeting this week.

The best option, by far, is for the NRC to do nothing. Nuclear power plants have been safely storing spent but lethal radioactive fuel rods for decades, so they're certainly capable of storing their own low-level waste until a willing recipient can be found.