Depleted uranium from a government cleanup in South Carolina is too radioactive and contains fission waste that should not be buried in Utah, says a new report from technical experts working with the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

Consulted by Gov. Gary Herbert before his meeting last week with the U.S. Energy Department (DOE), the report says a close look at the federal agency's own paperwork shows that the DU from the Savannah River Site doesn't meet state or federal hazard standards for disposal in EnergySolutions Inc.'s Tooele County landfill.

Arjun Makhijani and Harry Chmelynski estimate that between 680 and 5,600 drums of the total 33,000-drum inventory from Savannah River contain more of the fission product technetium-99 than Utah law allows.

"It would be better if DOE just took this back," said Makhijani, a nuclear physicist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

Utah's governor had read the report and received a briefing on the report - -- along with other information -- before his meeting with the DOE, said his chief of staff, Jason Perry. It was not, however, the driving force in the negotiation, he added.

The analysis is based on the Energy Department shipping papers for waste, which looked at the samples from 33 drums of the Savannah River cleanup's original 33,000 drums.

It concludes that, not only does the uranium content and concentration in the drums exceed what is allowed under federal rules for low-level radioactive waste, but the Savannah River waste is "reprocessed uranium," which means it contains fission by-products that are not permitted, such as plutonium isotopes, strontium and cesium-137.

DOE spokeswoman Jen Stutsman said her agency could not comment directly on the study since the department had not seen it but added that the DU does meet the standards for disposal in Utah.

Last week, Herbert announced he had reached an agreement with Ines Triay, the DOE's assistant secretary for environmental management, that two more train shipments of Savannah River DU will not come to Utah because the state is still working on its own minimum disposal standards for burying DU in a shallow landfill like EnergySolutions'.

In addition, the state wants to see the lab results for samples taken from 171 of the drums that are sitting at the EnergySolutions site but not yet buried. The analysis at a Tennessee lab is expected to take a few weeks.
Dan Shrum, senior vice president of regulatory compliance for EnergySolutions, called the statistical analysis "premature and inaccurate."

"They based their analysis on preliminary projections rather than actual data," he said, adding that HEAL and its experts should stop speculating and wait until the lab results are in.
In contrast, Makhijani criticized federal regulators for years for allowing DU to be treated like garden-variety low-level waste despite its hazard profile. He noted that state and federal regulators are permitting the disposal at EnergySolutions even though the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is years away from deciding the best way to dispose of large quantities of DU and reprocessed uranium.

HEAL's executive director, Vanessa Pierce, said her group would be sending the report to Triay and Energy Secretary Steven Chu and registering its objections to how the agency is handling the Savannah River waste.

"It sounds like someone has been sold a bill of goods," she said, noting the Energy Department's assertions the waste belongs in Utah.