At the first of two hearings on the expansion, more than two dozen critics stepped to the microphone to attack the company's proposal to increase capacity at its Tooele County radioactive landfill and plans by the state regulators to approve it.

"I am one of those who opposes the expansion of waste in Utah," said Anna Clare Shepherd, a mother of eight from Salt Lake County.

The afternoon hearing took place at the Department of Environmental Quality headquarters in Salt Lake City. A second hearing was slated for Wednesday night in Tooele. Public comments to the DEQ will be taken through Nov. 10.

Under the proposal before the Utah Division of Radiation Control, EnergySolutions would patch together two existing "cells" for radioactive waste and raise their height to 83 feet above ground, which is about twice the existing height. With this new "Supercell," the total capacity of EnergySolutions would grow by 49.2 percent, from 8.8 million cubic yards to 13.1 million cubic yards.

According to critics, an expansion of this scale ought to trigger the provision of a 1990 law requiring such significant license changes to be approved by the Legislature and the governor. But the company and state regulators say no such approval is needed for any growth within the site's current mile-square disposal area.

Under this interpretation of the law, EnergySolutions could put nearly 30 million cubic yards of waste on the site before the 1990 provision would come into play.

Tye Rogers, the company's vice president for safety and compliance, defended the company's proposal as an efficient use of the mile-square site and said the new "Supercell" had undergone a "rigorous technical evaluation" that showed it will be safe.

"EnergySolutions is not and never has been in violation of this rule," he said at the hearing.

Charles Judd, who was president of the company when it was called Envirocare of Utah, said the law was intended to ensure lawmakers scrutinized significant expansions. He also said it was "doubtful" the Supercell can be safe in light of studies done while he was with the company.

Another critic, the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said at least two previous expansions should have been reviewed by the governor and the Legislature. But regulators, who have approved 80 amendments in the past 18 years, have not applied the law, said Christopher Thomas, the group's policy director.

As a result, Thomas said: "Utah is the premier destination for radioactive waste today."

A Snyderville man questioned regulators' sincerity in carrying out the agency's promise "to safeguard human health and the environment," which was stamped into a plaque he'd read on the way into the hearing. "Is this the best you can do?" he asked the hearing officer.

Marci Kearl brought her children Mia and Dylan, ages 5 and 4, to the witness table and asked the officer to consider them while deciding the issue. "Because, in Utah, our children are our greatest asset."

fahys@sltrib.com

Government

guidelines

State law requires a full-bore license approval process for waste sites like the EnergySolutions facility in Tooele County, including consent of the Legislature and governor, if a new application or amendment:

* ''would cost 50% or more of the cost of construction of the original radioactive waste facility''

* ''or the modification would result in an increase in capacity . . . of a cumulative total of 50% of the total capacity . . .. ''

* A complication: Neither lawmakers nor regulators have ever determined baseline numbers from which increases could be judged.

Source: Utah Code 19-3-105