Waste facing year delay: State board agrees extra steps must be taken to ensure safety of radioactive shipment .

Oct 14, 2009 (The Salt Lake Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- ES | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Drums of radioactive cleanup waste in South Carolina are ready for loading onto rail cars for the journey to a Tooele County disposal site.

But now those plans could be delayed more than a year, after the state Radiation Control Board voted Tuesday to allow more depleted uranium (DU) only after EnergySolutions Inc. submits a report confirming its extra steps to safeguard the waste will work.

The move was a victory for the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) which has sought at least a temporary moratorium on DU, as the uranium-enrichment waste is called.

Meanwhile, the Salt Lake City-based nuclear waste company is objecting to the delay now facing its disposal contract with the U.S. Energy Department. The company was poised to take around 15,000 barrels of DU from the Savanah River Project cleanup as early as this month.

It had offered to add protections for DU to its state radiation license in an amendment. But the wording approved 7-1 on Tuesday surprised the company when it was changed to require the pending "site performance assessment" to be completed before additional DU comes to Utah.

The company, which already has buried 49,000 tons of DU, does not expect the updated assessment to be done until December 2010.

EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said in a prepared statement that Tuesday's vote contradicts the board's decision last month.

"The board correctly refused to impose a moratorium [on

depleted uranium] last month but took action today that is equivalent to a moratorium, an action that is inconsistent with Utah state law."

The company is expected to expand on its objections during a 30-day public comment period on the wording of the amendment approved Tuesday. The board is not expected to finalize the amendment until its Dec. 8 meeting.

While DU falls under the national rating system as Class A, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced in March it would determine whether shallow landfills like EnergySolutions' can contain DU safely.

DU has the unusual quality of becoming more hazardous over time. The NRC expects it will take about four years to answer that question.

Meanwhile, the board has found itself in the awkward position of having to setting a policy to control a material that isn't expected to become a significant hazard for a million years or longer.

Board member John W. Thomson balked at the idea of agreeing to proposed wording that called for the company to dig up the waste if the NRC ultimately determines that sites like EnergySolutions' are not suitable for DU.

"Is this a realistic requirement?" he asked. "Where could it go [if removed from the EnergySolutions site]? "

Board member Christian K. Gardner questioned whether the state has the legal and financial ability to carry out a DU removal.

"It's a big public policy decision we're making," Gardner said. "Let's do the study first."

Tooele County Commissioner Colleen Johnson voted against the license amendment.

"The board has wisely identified the root of the problem as putting the depleted-uranium cart before the horse," said Vanessa Pierce, director of HEAL.

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