Font ResizeThree scientists say federal nuclear regulators owe Utahns an apology -- and a policy change -- for allowing shallow burial of depleted uranium, including the 49,000 tons already at EnergySolutions Inc.'s landfill in Tooele County.
Geologist Stephen T. Nelson and climatologist Summer B. Rupper, both of Brigham Young University, and Kansas State University geologist Charles G. Oviatt, say it is "absurd" for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deem depleted uranium safe for surface disposal.
The uranium enrichment waste gets increasingly hazardous for a million years, and that's too long to reasonably ensure the safety of any shallow landfills, especially one like the Tooele County site that is underwater a few
The criticism comes in a letter to the regulators, who are fielding public input on whether large amounts of DU can be safely disposed at sites like EnergySolutions'.
NRC spokesman David McIntyre said his agency will consider the scientists' comments as part of its in-depth review. But, he added, the agency won't approve any more DU disposal in Utah "if we don't think it's safe."
The company said it's looking at the impacts of rising lake levels on the landfill cover, erosion potential and leaching.
"Until this assessment is completed," the company
But all three scientists, none of them speaking for their universities, are experts in the geological history of Lake Bonneville -- the massive water body that has periodically covered parts of three states in the past 30,000 years but now has receded to the present-day Great Salt Lake. They say a shortage of deep, underground radioactive waste disposal is "clearly driving" the NRC's decision to let the waste come to surface disposal sites and they accuse regulators of "a programmatic failure" to plan for proper disposal of DU deep underground.
"The EnergySolutions site is appropriate for waste that decays away in a couple hundred years," said Nelson, a former member and chairman of the Utah Radiation Control Board," in press release distributed by the anti-nuclear group, the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.
"We don't know exactly who will be living here when the EnergySolutions site is washed away," he said, "but the DU we take now could leave them a massive environmental catastrophe to clean up."
The criticism comes at a tumultuous time in the oversight of DU.
The federal government needs to get rid of its own stockpile, about 700,000 tons. Plus, the NRC already has approved two commercial uranium enrichment facilities that are expected to generate another 700,000 tons in the years ahead. EnergySolutions has for years been considered as the most likely end site for this waste, based on regulations and costs.
Last spring the NRC paved the way for more DU in Utah by reaffirming that the waste belongs in the lowest classification for low-level radioactive waste, Class A. But the agency acknowledged that its regulations never anticipated large amounts of DU being disposed of in the same place. So, it added a qualification: that an analysis should be done now to determine what it would take to make a specific disposal site safe.
Why the concern? The NRC considers DU a "unique waste stream" because it has the unusual quality of growing more hazardous over time. EnergySolutions has defended its DU disposal plans by pointing to the NRC's Class A designation, which the Tooele County site is licensed to take. But the classification, by definition, means the site will be radiologically safe enough to build a house on after 100 years.
Utah's Radiation Control Board in September opted against imposing a proposed moratorium on new DU until federal regulators finish their review in about three years. Instead, the Utah board is seeking public comment on its plan to change EnergySolutions' license to require the company to prove the DU will be safe before any more of it is permitted there.
The company has requested time to speak with the board about the new license requirement at its meeting on Tuesday. Board members have signaled they may close the meeting to discuss possible litigation over DU.
Meanwhile, EnergySolutions has a pending contract to accept about 15,000 barrels of DU from the government cleanup at Savannah River, South Carolina. The company has called the board's proposal, which could delay its DU shipments by a year, a "defacto moratorium" and accused the board of "not acting properly." A company spokesman declined to comment Friday on what it plans to say Tuesday.
"We firmly believe that we have the right to take it," Company CEO Steve Creamer told investors on a conference call Thursday, condemning critics' "lies and half-truths to try to stir people up."
"We will protect the company's and our shareholders' rights on this matter, and I'll just leave it at that."
The NRC's Fact Sheet can be seen at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-du-other-waste-disposal.pdf
