The Natural Resources, Environment and Agriculture Interim Committee is scheduled to take up a resolution approving the expansion requested by Rep. Jim Gowans, D-Tooele.
If lawmakers give a final OK during the upcoming legislative session, and if Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. agrees, the Tooele County facility could add 536 acres to the 543 it already uses to dispose of radioactive cleanup waste.
Radiation control officials in July gave their approval, with the understanding that no disposal would be allowed on the site until they review detailed plans. And Tooele County government has signed off on the plan, too.
The push to expand Envirocare comes as the company appears headed for another year of record disposal.
The low-level “Class A” waste, largely from government environmental cleanups and nuclear reactors, has totaled more than 12 million cubic feet in the first half of this year.
Over its 17-year life, the company has accepted nearly 151 million cubic feet Ð enough to fill the Delta Center in Salt Lake City eight times over Ð and officials have said the current site has enough capacity for another 10 to 20 years of waste.
Envirocare keeps a large team of lobbyists in the Capitol during the legislative session and is usually one of the top contributors to state campaigns.
Weeks after the company changed hands last winter, the lawmakers capped the type of waste Envirocare can bring to the state, so that more dangerously radioactive known as Class B or Class C waste is banned in Utah.
While Wednesday's hearing will be one of only a few before political officials in which the public is invited to weigh in on the expansion, it may happen without one of Envirocare's most ardent critics, the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah) is appealing the expansion approval granted by state regulators.
A teleconference on whether that appeal will be allowed has been set for the same time as the legislative discussion. The legislative hearing will take place sometime after 2 p.m., Wednesday in House Building Room W125.
