Jul 15 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune


The Utah Radiation Control Board has struggled for months over whether to impose a moratorium on depleted uranium, and on Tuesday the panel postponed a decision until they can confer with federal regulators.

"We can get a better feeling as to where they are going," said David Tripp, advocating a delay of two more months.

EnergySolutions Inc. already has buried more than 50,000 tons of the unusual radioactive waste at its Tooele County landfill, and the Salt Lake City company is seeking contracts to take some of the 1.4 million tons from government stockpiles and from enrichment now coming on line.

Federal regulators reaffirmed this spring that depleted uranium can be safely disposed along with the least hazardous category of radioactive materials -- like the stuff at EnergySolutions. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission also said tougher safety requirements might be warranted for large quantities of depleted uranium.

Developing these additional regulations is expected to take years.

Why the concern? Depleted uranium has the unusual quality of becoming more hazardous over time. In fact, its hazard doesn't peak for 1 million years, says the NRC.

So, while federal regulators ponder added regulations, Utah's radiation board is unsure whether it needs to step in to stop the flow of depleted uranium in the meantime for safety reason.

Eight people -- including two doctors and a geologist -- urged the state panel to back

a moratorium suggested by the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

Former board chairman and Brigham Young University geologist Stephen Nelson told his former colleagues it is "patently absurd" to allow depleted uranium in a shallow disposal site like that at EnergySolutions. This unique radioactive waste belongs in a deep geological repository where it can be protected from, say, another rise in Lake Bonneville, which covered the EnergySolutions site with 200 feet of water 12,000 years ago, he said.

"Depleted uranium is like a diamond -- it's forever," he said, distinguishing it from the 100-year hazard period for most waste at the Tooele County site.

"Depleted uranium is about as unlike that [other buried material] as anything you can imagine."

But Dan Shrum and Tom Magette of EnergySolutions said depleted uranium is already buried safely at the Tooele County disposal site and a moratorium won't do much more than stymie Department of Energy cleanups nationwide. They offered instead to change EnergySolutions' Utah radiation license to require deeper burial of depleted uranium and a thicker protective cover over it.

"What we have proposed today would go beyond what we think the NRC will require," Magette said.

Shrum and Magette also said reports have exaggerated the amount of depleted uranium that might be headed to the site in the next few years. Just 50,000 tons will be ready for disposal in the next five years, and about 10,000 tons is part of a Savannah River Project cleanup EnergySolutions is actively pursuing, they said.

Board members voted 6-4 to put the proposed moratorium on hold until they can hear about the NRC's plans in person, when the agency holds public meetings in Salt Lake City on depleted uranium in September.

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Public meetings

NRC has announced plans for two public "roundtables" on depleted uranium, one on Sept. 2-3 at its Maryland headquarters and a second Sept. 23-24 in Salt Lake City. The agency has offered to attend a Sept. 22 radiation board meeting to discuss the study its done so far.

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