This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Just when we thought importing radioactive waste from Italy was out, EnergySolutions tries to pull it back in.
The Utah-based disposal firm has asked the U.S. District Court in Utah to determine if the eight-state Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management has the power to regulate the source of waste dumped at the company's facility at Clive.
Monday's lawsuit was a pre-emptive strike, coming just three days before the compact's board is scheduled to vote Thursday on the company's multi-billion-dollar plan to import low-level radioactive materials from Italy's decommissioned nuclear power plants. Approximately 1,600 tons of the materials would be shipped across the country and buried in Utah after processing at an EnergySolutions' recycling facility in Tennessee.
The defeat of the proposal by the compact is virtually assured because Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has instructed Utah's board member to vote against the plan. According to the law that created the compact, an affirmative vote of the representative of the state hosting the facility is required for waste to be accepted from outside the eight-state region.
But EnergySolutions officials claim that only the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission can regulate foreign waste imports. Company attorneys will argue that the compact does not have authority over the dump because it's a private commercial facility, that the compact's authority is pre-empted by federal statutes and regulations, and that the U.S. Constitution forbids the compact from discriminating between identical foreign and domestic materials. (The firm's predecessor, Envirocare of Utah, didn't have a problem recognizing the authority of the compact nearly 20 years ago when, with Utah's blessing, it sought and received the compact's permission to open the dump.)
Obviously, it's not in the best interests of Utah or the nation to allow foreign waste to be shipped to our shores. The dump in Tooele County already accepts about 98 percent of our nation's low-level waste, and by July it will be the only disposal option open to 36 states. Even if EnergySolutions limits international waste to just 5 percent of the dump's capacity as promised, every square inch counts.
So, as a concerned citizen, whaddaya gonna do? Instead of sitting back and letting the courts decide our future, encourage Gov. Huntsman to stick to his guns, and tell Congress to exercise the nuclear option - HR 5632.
The bill would impose an import ban on low-level radioactive waste, reserve our dwindling disposal space for domestic waste, and settle this issue once and for all.