The Northwest Interstate Compact on Radioactive Waste wants to address the loophole in Tennessee regulations that allows such waste to be imported to the United States.

EnergySolutions Inc., a Salt Lake City nuclear-waste company, has raised awareness about foreign waste in the past year, with a request to import waste from Italy's decommissioned nuclear power plants, process it at the company's Tennessee plant and dispose of a small portion of it in the company's Tooele County specialized landfill.

The company has said the import would not be much different from the foreign waste it has been burying in Utah for eight years. The waste is mildly contaminated with radiation - not lethally dangerous high-level waste, like that used in nuclear fuel.

Yet federal and regional regulators, along with members of Congress, have raised a red flag about EnergySolutions' latest import request because of its large volume, about 20,000 tons, compared with 1,883 tons for the 13 import requests federal regulators have previously approved.

EnergySolutions has gone to court to get a federal judge's ruling on whether the Northwest Compact has jurisdiction over the company's Utah landfill. The company says "no," while the compact says "yes."

fahys@sltrib.com