'Hot' waste targeted

Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, plans to file a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would require Envirocare of Utah to first obtain approval from the Legislature and the governor before it could accept radioactive waste that contains radium-226 or above.

It's an attempt to at least delay Envirocare's plans to take uranium mill tailings from a Department of Energy cleanup site in Fernald, Ohio. That waste, which sits in silos, contains radium that is much more radioactive than the waste it now accepts under a federal license.

Under Utah law, the Fernald waste would be considered Class C waste. The Legislature has already placed a moratorium on that kind of waste pending the outcome of a two-year task force study.

"What I think we should do is make sure there's uniformity in the state's radioactive waste policies, and the Fernald waste seems to be an anomaly," said Urquhart.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is seeking a provision in an energy bill that would reclassify the Fernald waste as "commercial," and that would allow private companies like Envirocare to bid on it.

Currently, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has primacy over uranium mill tailings like the Fernald wastes, but the federal agency is poised to transfer regulatory oversight to Utah. That is likely to happen in March.

Urquhart will present his plan to the waste task force at its next meeting Nov. 18.

"Here we have waste that even after it is treated is going to be 25 times more radioactive in terms of radium that what Envirocare now takes," he said. "I think that puts it in terms of real-life concerns and on par with Class B and C wastes."

E-mail: donna@desnews.com

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