NRC to consider allowing blended radioactive waste to be disposed of in Utah

NRC to consider allowing blended waste in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing a rule change that would allow hotter radioactive waste to be mixed with less hazardous waste so it could be disposed of in Utah.

Utah is home to the only low-level radioactive waste facility available to 36 states. But it only disposes of Class A waste, considered the least hazardous.

NRC regulators are proposing the blending of hotter Class B and C waste with Class A waste so that it can legally come to Utah.

Much of the nation’s class B and C waste has had no place to go in the past two years since a South Carolina facility was closed to all but three states.

An NRC paper cites industry estimates that blended waste could slash the volume of orphaned Class B and Class C waste by two-thirds, from 12,000 cubic feet a year to about 4,000 cubic feet.

NRC staff is expected to present its proposal to commissioners Thursday. Whether commission members agree to it will be decided in a vote, probably at a later date.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and the Utah Division of Radiation Control are opposed to blending waste “when the intent is to alter the waste classification for the purposes of disposal site access.”

Utah banned Class B and Class C low-level radioactive waste five years ago.

Christopher Thomas, policy director for the nuclear waste watchdog group Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, called the potential of blended waste a states’ rights issue.

“A bunch of unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., are about to open the floodgates on hotter nuclear power plant waste coming to Utah,” he said. “If they approve EnergySolutions’ plan, the amount of radioactivity in the waste we receive every year will more than triple.”

Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc., which operates the disposal facility in Utah’s west desert, has generally supported a new approach for blending.

Its competitors are objecting to the changes, though.

State regulators, EnergySolutions and its competitors are expected to be part of the discussions at the NRC meeting next week.

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Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, www.sltrib.com