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Utah one-stop shop for N-waste

Sep 04, 2008

State regulators worry about the growing role of Tooele site

By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune

LAS VEGAS - When some people refer to Utah as a "national treasure," it's not for the state's picturesque deserts or breathtaking mountains but because of a mile-square disposal site in Tooele County for much of the nation's radioactive waste.
    Without it, rail cars of low-level radioactive waste would have nowhere to go.
    That kind of notoriety is making the Utah public and policymakers uneasy, a state regulator said Wednesday.
    Bill Sinclair, deputy director of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality, advised an industry group here: "Don't put all of your eggs into one basket."
    He was talking about Utah's low-level waste disposal site in Tooele County.
    Sinclair was speaking at a forum sponsored by Exchange Monitor Publications that involves local, state, regional, national and international regulators, as well as businesses that provide cleanup, disposal and treatment of low-level radioactive waste.
    High-level nuclear waste, like spent nuclear fuel, is not allowed in Utah. And the low-level waste permitted at the EnergySolutions Inc. site comes from 36 states and federal government cleanups.
    With the closure last summer of a disposal site in Barnwell, S.C., to waste from all but three states, most of the low-level waste in the nation now has nowhere to go but Utah. And some low-level waste - hotter Class B and C low-level waste that the Legislature outlawed three years ago - has no disposal available.
    The industry's solution has been to consider a variety of options:
    * Using hazardous waste sites for waste mildly contaminated with radiation.
    * Blending mildly contaminated waste with hotter waste so that it is eligible for disposal at the EnergySolutions site.
    * Updating regulations so that less hazardous waste is classified as the Class A waste allowed in Utah.
    Speakers from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the trade association for nuclear companies, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), talked about their efforts to rethink the current limits on mixing waste.
    Without risking the public health and safety, they hope to ease restrictions on mixing so some of the Class B and C waste is diluted enough to meet state restrictions on radioactivity concentrations. NEI's Ralph Andersen said states like Utah would be free to decide if they don't want the waste that has been blended.
    "The time is right to reconsider the [regulatory] framework and make changes that make sense," he said.
    Sinclair bristled at the notion that "the solution to pollution is dilution" in the case of radioactive materials. Mixing B and C waste with less-contaminated material might not be an acceptable solution from the state's perspective, he said.
    "It causes us concern," he said.
    Bret Rogers, representing EnergySolutions, indicated little needs to be done with federal regulations to accommodate mixing. He said there already is much flexibility in the NRC regulations.
    But Scott Kirk, of Waste Control Specialists, urged colleagues to reconsider any changes to the mixing regulation. He said it might trigger both regulatory complications and public-perception problems.
    "Waste that is diluted may not be acceptable for disposal under Texas rules," he said.
    Still, Waste Control Specialists might be in a position in the next couple of years to provide a solution to the hotter waste.
    Kirk's company received a draft license for a new low-level waste disposal facility for Class A, B and C waste last month. If it receives final approval, it would be the first low-level waste facility approved under the federal law enacted in the 1980's
    fahys@sltrib.com
   
   Factors that give Utah's EnergySolutions disposal site a high profile:
   
    * Proposal to import waste from Italy and possibly other nations.
    * Prospect of future expansion, if the politicians and public will allow.
    * Proposal for blending/mixing waste.
    * Need for additional disposal capacity for low-level nuclear waste.

Game on: State seeks to fight Italian waste in court

Aug 30, 2008

Tribune Editorial

Utah thrust. EnergySolutions parried. And the battle may continue in a federal courtroom.
    If a judge is willing to add Utah as a defendant, the state will wisely step into the ring in a lawsuit filed by EnergySolutions, which is challenging the authority of the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste to ban foreign radioactive waste from the company's dump in Utah.
    EnergySolutions hopes to import low-level waste from Italy's nuclear power industry. It would be processed at the company's recycling facility in Tennessee, with 1,600 tons of the radioactive garbage destined for its mile-square disposal facility in Tooele County.
    But this spring, the governing board of the eight-state compact denied the request, which, under compact bylaws approved by the federal government, requires the consent of the majority of the board.
    The board member of the state that hosts the repository - in this case Utah Department of Environmental Quality Deputy Director Bill Sinclair - also has veto power over waste agreements. And Sinclair, under orders from Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, voted to nix the plan, helping to spawn the lawsuit. The case will be heard in Sept. 2009.
    Huntsman, an opponent of EnergySolutions' international import aspirations, believes, and many agree, that Congress should ban imported waste. That the United States, and Utah by default, should not become the world's radioactive waste dumping ground.
    A House bill to that effect, co-sponsored by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has languished in committee. If approved, it would render the lawsuit moot, and take EnergySolutions' application for an import license off the table at the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC has yet to schedule hearings or indicate when it may rule on the request, but it appears that the regulatory agency would have no choice but to approve the plan if the Italian waste meets the definition of low-level waste and can be transported safely.
    With the import ban stalled in Congress, the Huntsman administration is wise to engage EnergySolutions in the courtroom, and open another front in the fight to safeguard the state and the nation's interests.
    Utah's growing reputation as a destination for undesirable waste clashes with our state's No. 1 industry, tourism. And the Tooele County facility is the only disposal site available for low-level waste from 36 states. With a nuclear power renaissance on the horizon, we need to reserve our dwindling disposal space for domestic waste.

Utah is poised to join suit over foreign N-waste

Aug 28, 2008

By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune

The state has been asked to join the federal court fight over a Salt Lake City company's proposal to import foreign radioactive waste.
    Utah has agreed to become a defendant in a case brought by EnergySolutions Inc. against a regional organization that oversees low-level radioactive waste, according to papers filed this week in federal court.
    EnergySolutions filed suit in May to have a judge rule on whether the company must abide by the limits of the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste. That eight-state nuclear-oversight organization says the company is not permitted to dispose of waste from other nations.
    The nuclear-services company contends the compact has no authority over operations at its specialized landfill in Tooele County. It has an application pending before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to bury about 1,600 tons of contaminated waste from Italy's nuclear program in the mile-square landfill about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City.
    Disposal is a key element of the company's nuclear-waste services, because low-level waste from 36 states has nowhere else to go and other nations are having trouble developing disposal sites of their own. The Tooele County location is not authorized to accept high-level waste, such as spent nuclear fuel.
    Utah joined the Northwest compact in 1982 under a plan by Congress to promote regional solutions for low-level waste. And, when EnergySolutions, then called Envirocare of Utah, sought to accept low-level waste in 1991, the state backed the company before the compact.
    With the compact's authority now on the line because of the EnergySolutions suit, the state wants to protect its role in the compact. The state's "yes" vote is needed on issues involving the Utah site.
    But Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., saying the federal government should step up to the job of controlling foreign waste, directed Utah's compact vote to block foreign waste from the Tooele County site.
    "The state being involved in this case makes a lot of sense," said Lisa Roskelley, Huntsman's spokeswoman.
    EnergySolutions general counsel Val Christensen noted that, when the state asked to be added as a defendant in the case, "we expressed no objection."
    U.S. District Court Judge Ted Stewart must sign off on the request to add Utah to the case.
 

   
    Energy-Solutions wants to import 20,000 tons of waste from Italy's nuclear-plant cleanups.
    It would process most of the waste in Tennessee. About 1,600 tons would be buried in Tooele County. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been considering the request since September.

EPA: U.S.Magnesium wastes endanger workers, families, birds

Aug 28, 2008

By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune

A Utah magnesium plant that for years ranked as the nation's worst polluter appears headed for a new tally: the Superfund list.
    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans next week to propose U.S. Magnesium for the agency's cleanup-priorities roster. Hazardous chemical waste at the company's Tooele County processing plant, the EPA warns, is putting workers, their families, waterfowl and the environment at risk.
    Superfund status would allow the EPA to order U.S. Magnesium to pay for a multimillion-dollar cleanup. And although the move comes nearly a year after a federal judge threw out much of the EPA's $1 billion lawsuit against the company, the cleanup proposal is "not retaliation," said Gwen Christiansen, an environmental scientist who works on the agency's Superfund National Priorities List.
    "We want to make sure [plant] wastes are disposed of in ways that will protect human health and the environment," she said.
    An EPA fact sheet says the hazards include dioxins, metals, acidic wastewater, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB). Waste chemicals, it notes, cause cancer or other health problems, such as diabetes and immune disorders.
    U.S. Magnesium hasn't been formally notified about the potential listing, but it began registering its objections Wednesday. The company accused the agency of failing to follow its own public processes and of incorrectly reading the science and the law.
    "Protecting the environment and our people," said company President Mike Legge, "must be part of every business decision we make."
    U.S. Magnesium, about 40 miles west of Salt Lake City, topped the nation's worst-polluter lists back in the 1980s. But, after spending about $50 million on improvements, it has slashed hazardous emissions that, in 1989, reached 119 million pounds.
    Now the plant falls short of the nation's top-100 toxic polluters and is fifth on Utah's list. In 2006, it reported nearly 4.4 million pounds of toxic releases.
    The company and the public will have 60 days to comment on whether the 4,525-acre site should be added to the Superfund list. Utah now has 24 Superfund sites in various stages of cleanup.
    While the EPA's Superfund office sifts through public comments in the coming months, it is possible that the agency's legal arm will revive the $1 billion lawsuit that began nearly eight years ago. Recent court fillings free the EPA to appeal last fall's rulings by U.S. District Judge Dee Benson.
    Benson largely sided with the company, which said Congress granted the magnesium plant an exemption from the nation's hazardous-waste law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Worried that the ruling could set a precedent in similar cases, the EPA might try to have Benson's ruling overturned.
    The company also was the target of a $1.5 billion bankruptcy-trustee suit brought on behalf of investors who claimed they weren't properly informed about the pollution lawsuit.
    In addition, the agency, the company and its employee union agreed in 2005 on additional steps that must be taken to protect worker health. U.S. Magnesium noted that a National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health evaluation of worker health on exposure to the hazardous chemicals found that while "workers had measurable dioxins, furans, PCBs and HCB in their blood . . . the blood levels were lower than those associated with observable health problems."
    "Raising unfounded public concerns about worker safety after entering into such an agreement," the company said, "is very inappropriate."
    U.S. Magnesium also challenged the EPA's assertions that birds were dying after coming in contact with contaminated areas. It called the statements "fictitious and an irresponsible representation."

Nuclear plant proposal fuels worries

Aug 24, 2008
By Stephen Speckman
Deseret News
 

Proposals for a uranium mill and nuclear power plant near Green River, Emery County, are raising more and more eyebrows.

A group that says it seeks to protect Utahns from nuclear and toxic waste wants to know where high-level radioactive waste will go if the state allows a nuclear power plant to be built in an industrial park on state trust land near Green River.

Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah members also told the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration board of directors during a meeting Tuesday that the state isn't maximizing the trust's revenue potential by exercising an option to give the nuclear-plant owners first dibs on 1,600 acres in the new industrial park six miles from Green River.

HEAL policy director Christopher Thomas told SITLA board members that the deal, which could benefit Emery County coffers, in effect puts a cap on the price of the 1,600 acres.

"As I understand it, other potential buyers will now have to get in line behind the nuclear power developer, even if they wanted to offer a higher bid for the land," Thomas said.

Thomas wants land in the industrial park opened up to bidders.

The proposed plant's waste stream is another sticking point for HEAL. Thomas said the plant developer should guarantee a disposal place before being allowed to set up shop near Green River.

"Without that assurance, we don't know how long we'll need to manage that waste on site, who's responsible for it after the plant's useful life and just how much it could cost," Thomas said.

If Yucca Mountain ever gets going as a waste site, HEAL is worried there won't be enough room to store waste there from a Utah reactor.

Some are touting the plant's benefits.

Earlier this year Heritage Foundation research fellow Jack Spencer wrote that a proposal to build two 1,500-megawatt reactors in Green River would provide Utahns with "clean and secure" energy while possibly lessening the blow on industry from efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, blamed for global warming.

But water issues for the mill and plant may be a long way from being resolved.

Last fall Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, talked about building two reactors somewhere in the state. Tilton is an owner of Transition Power Development. Water from one of the units could come from the Kane County Water Conservancy District, directed by Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab.

If the plant proposed for construction near Green River is built, it will be in the same industrial park as a planned uranium mill.

In 2001 the price for a pound of uranium cost less than eight items at the Dollar Store. By last year, however, uranium soared to $138 per pound, which has renewed interests from prospectors with an eye on Utah's cache of yellowcake.

Last May Mancos Resources Inc. presented the Utah Radiation Control Board with a plan to operate a mine that will produce about 1,200 tons of uranium per day. It's unknown at this point where the uranium would be enriched or even if the neighboring plant would use it or rely on sources outside Utah.

Canada-based Bluerock Resources Ltd. owns Mancos, which now has an office in Green River, and it has 12 "uranium properties" in Utah and Colorado. The Mancos mill would employ more than 40 people, last about 50 years and result in a $125 million investment in Utah, with an "optimistic" start date of three years from now.

The group Uranium Watch is keeping an eye on how the mill might impact water resources. The mill would need licensing from three state regulatory agencies, including the Division of Water Quality. A hearing on water rights protests is set for Aug. 27 in Green River.