The panel cleared the way on Friday for the Glen Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club to challenge the "alternate feed" rule that allows the International Uranium Corp. mill to recycle material that environmentalists insist is dangerously contaminated waste.

The Moab-based group is fighting the Blanding facility's latest state permit, which would allow it to extract uranium from the discards of an Oklahoma metal plant cleanup.

"We are very pleased that the Board decided to formally hear our concerns and fulfill its responsibility to the citizens of Utah to carefully oversee uranium processing and disposal in Utah," said Sarah M. Fields, the Sierra Club's White Mesa watchdog.

The radiation board's decision is silent on whether the Sierra Club's position is right and only opens the door for the group to continue fighting a Utah Radiation Control Division permit the environmentalists say is wrongheaded.

Kent Bradford, chairman of the radiation board, noted that the board vote was unanimous to hear more about the Sierra Club's concerns. Another factor is that this is the first time the state's handling of "alternate feed" has been up for consideration.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversaw operations at the White Mesa plant until August, 2004, when the state took over that responsibility.

Alternate feed can be any radioactive material that's been processed before and that can be reprocessed to concentrate the uranium into yellowcake. The yellowcake is processed still further to make nuclear reactor fuel.

Material from the Fansteel FsMRI cleanup in Oklahoma is the leftovers of 33 years of metals processing.

Fields has said the Oklahoma material is not "alternate feed." It contains high radium concentrations - as much as 85 times the concentrations federal and state laws allow - so International Uranium should be regulated like a radioactive waste disposal site, she said.

The material also contains large quantities of highly toxic contaminants - including cyanide, lead and tin - that require the site to be regulated as a hazardous waste facility, she said.

The company disputes environmentalists' claim that the facility should be regulated as a radioactive or hazardous waste site.

fahys@sltrib.com