Compact votes to halt EnergySolutions proposal to import Italian waste

BOISE — The EnergySolutions proposal to store radioactive waste from Italy in Utah has, for now, received a red light from the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management.

After a closed-door session of a committee meeting Thursday to discuss the company's federal lawsuit filed this week, Utah's compact committee member Bill Sinclair read from a resolution that essentially said EnergySolutions does not have the necessary "arrangement" with the compact in order to import the Italian waste into Utah. Such an arrangement would need to be adopted by the committee prior to EnergySolutions' accepting that waste.

Sinclair said the intent of the resolution was to send a "clear message" on the compact's stand on foreign waste.

The committee's decision came after EnergySolutions attorney Val John Christensen asked the compact's committee to look past the "emotional protest of 'not in my back yard."'

In an April 23 letter to compact committee members, Christensen said the company's license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has generated "political reactions, based almost entirely on misinformation."

License approval would mean EnergySolutions could accept up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from closed nuclear reactors in Italy. The bulk of materials would be processed and recycled at an EnergySolutions facility in Tennessee. About one third of the materials would be metal to be recycled for "beneficial" use.

Then about 1,600 tons of Class A waste left over after processing would be transported to the company's disposal site in Clive, Tooele County. The company is not licensed to accept hotter Class D or C waste, which nuclear watchdog group Institute for Energy and Environmental Research president Arjun Makhijani recently suggested would actually be coming to Clive. EnergySolutions has denied that claim.

An Oregon committee member said he intended to make a motion to amend the resolution after a discussion about how to classify waste coming from Tennessee after the waste is incinerated there.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com

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