Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson says she’ll be a “hard sell” on a state proposal that could lead to a uranium enrichment facility smack-dab in the middle of Utah’s population center.
Such a facility, the mayor fears, could tarnish Utah’s reputation and make it a target amid global tensions.
In June, state officials unveiled a proposal to build a facility at Camp Williams in Bluffdale that would manufacture equipment needed to enrich uranium. But there is a possibility uranium would be processed on-site at the Utah National Guard facility — a prospect Wilson recently told the County Council could be risky for the area.
“As this was being announced, we saw the U.S. decide to take on Iran and go in and bomb its facilities and a range of facilities,” Wilson said. “I love that every time I think about our own safety and security in this valley, [I] feel pretty good that we’re not a coastal city, we have limited state population, and we’re a bit under the radar. You do this [build a uranium enrichment facility], I don’t know that we can say that.”
The state Military Installation Development Authority — MIDA, for short — is currently only planning an equipment manufacturing project for the facility, a spokesperson confirmed in a statement, but an enrichment facility is “a potential future project.”
“We have spent considerable time understanding safe operations,” the spokesperson said of the manufacturing project, “as well as how this project will support the Utah National Guard in developing several large-scale capital projects that assist in their military readiness that would otherwise be unattainable.”
Camp Williams straddles Salt Lake and Utah counties, which together account for about two-thirds of the Beehive State’s population — and that’s a concern for Wilson if the state plans to eventually process uranium there.
There’s also a reputational risk, Wilson said, since Utah is popular for its recreation, access to the mountains and the “greatest snow on Earth.”
“I hope that matters will turn in the direction of peace, not war,” Wilson said. “We don’t have that crystal ball to know what’s ahead, and that’s concerning to me as well.”
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson worries about a potential uranium enrichment facility at Camp Williams.
If the proposal “evolves” into an enrichment facility, it would have to go through a “strict regulatory process,” said Emy Lesofski, the director of the Utah Office of Energy Development and an adviser to Gov. Spencer Cox.
The process would help the state understand how any risks the facility would have for the public could be mitigated.
“That’s something that certainly would involve the public, because that’s part of how the NRC (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission) process works, and it would involve working with the impacted jurisdictions,” Lesofski said. “... We’re really committed to making sure that we’re evaluating the impacts and being good stewards of what we’re doing and following any regulatory requirements for any type of activity within the energy ecosystem.”
Wilson vowed to ask more questions about the risk to public health, any risks regarding the “nature of the world right now,” and transparency surrounding what the facility would do.
“We’re at the beginning of the conversation, not the end of the conversation,” Lesofski said. “So I would expect there to be more public discussion on this as the project materializes.”
Camp Williams is already home to a major government target. In 2013, the National Security Agency opened a massive $1.2 billion data center.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) An aerial view of the NSA's data center in Bluffdale.
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