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Radiation regulators offered a first look Thursday at a new report on depleted uranium — and, more specifically, how a specialized landfill in Tooele County is expected to contain large volumes of it for thousands of years.
EnergySolutions Inc. submitted its detailed engineering report on the question June 1. And, at Thursday's meeting, regulators discussed the report's general outline — the details of which are in hundreds of pages of highly technical analysis and data — and talked about the evaluation process ahead that is expected to last about a year.
EnergySolutions representatives were on hand but said little. Other participants included representatives of the environmental group the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, Radiation Control Board member Richard Codell and representatives of Waste Control Specialists, an EnergySolutions competitor with a radioactive waste disposal site in Texas.
The Division of Radiation Control will study EnergySolutions' "performance assessment" with an eye on making sure that the site can contain depleted uranium for at least 10,000 years, regardless of changing climatic conditions, and to ensure that an "inadvertent intruder" won't get a dangerous dose of radiation at the site even in the distant future.
DRC Director Rusty Lundberg said his agency would host at least one more meeting where the public can weigh in — after his agency decides whether or not the mile-square EnergySolutions landfill is a suitable disposal site for large volumes of this radioactive waste. And, given some of the questions raised Thursday, he might suggest one or two prior to that, he added.
EnergySolutions said its engineering report considers current state law on depleted uranium, not proposed standards the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering that include a few requirements that are tougher than Utah's. That means it is possible that the state will clear the way for the disposal of more depleted uranium in Utah only to have to ask EnergySolutions to redo its performance assessment (PA) with any stricter standards that NRC decides on in the future.
"As already incorporated by our license, and included in the existing rule," said EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker, "should the NRC change the rule, we will apply the new regulations to the PA."
Depleted uranium is getting special attention because, unlike many other types of radioactive waste, it gets more and more hazardous for around 1 million years.
Matt Pacenza, HEAL's policy director, said in a news release his group was exasperated the company had declined to discuss publicly how it concluded that the site would be safe for disposal of 700,000 tons of depleted uranium or even to describe the report.
"We think the Clive site is a poor choice for disposing of 700,000 tons of radioactive depleted uranium," he said. "We wish EnergySolutions had explained its findings today, instead of choosing to remain silent about an issue so important to the people of Utah — for many generations to come."
Depleted uranium in Utah
The Utah Division of Radiation Control has posted its presentations on the EnergySolutions depleted uranium report. The engineering report itself is expected to be online by Monday at the division's website: radiationcontrol.utah.gov/