Judge Hears Arguments on Radioactive Waste Dump
February 26, 2009
By BROCK VERGAKIS Associated Press Writer
A federal judge heard oral arguments Thursday in a lawsuit to
determine whether an interstate compact that includes Utah has the authority to regulate the country's only privately owned low-level
radioactive waste dump.
Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. filed a lawsuit last
year after the compact refused to allow it to dispose of up to 1,600 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy at its Clive, Utah,
facility.
Gov. Jon Huntsman has said he's only willing to allow domestic
waste.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said it won't grant the
company an import license for the Italian waste if there's no place to
dispose of it, and its decision will depend heavily on the court's
ruling.
U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart said Thursday he will rule in the
case as fast as possible, although he didn't give a timeline.
"We feel that our position regarding this matter is on sound
legal ground," Steve Creamer, CEO and Chairman of EnergySolutions,
said in a statement. "We appreciate the thoughtfulness of the judge
and we look forward to his ruling after he has considered all of the
information presented."
EnergySolutions wants to import up to 20,000 tons of radioactive
waste from Italy's shuttered nuclear power program through the ports
of Charleston, S.C., or New Orleans. If the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission grants the company an import license, it would be the
largest amount of nuclear waste ever brought into the country.
After processing in Tennessee, the remaining waste would be
shipped to Utah.
Huntsman is using the compact to keep the foreign waste out.
Additionally, congressmen from Utah and Tennessee are proposing
federal legislation that would ban the importation of any foreign
waste, saying they don't want the U.S. to become an international
dumping ground because the country needs its limited disposal space
for domestic waste.
EnergySolutions disputes that notion, saying capacity is not an
issue and that it will limit international waste to 5 percent of
Clive's remaining capacity. Of the 4.3 acres the company says it would
reserve for international waste, the Italian waste would take up about
.02 acres of that.
Stewart said his decision will be based largely on whether
Congress intended to give regional compacts the authority to regulate
low-level radioactive waste dumps that weren't set up to accept waste
from their own compacts.
Congress authorized regional compacts in 1985 to encourage states
to find ways of disposing of their own low-level radioactive waste.
However, no new regional facilities have been built since the compact system was
created and only two sites - at Richland, Wash., and Barnwell, S.C. -
accept waste from their compacts.
Stewart acknowledged Thursday that EnergySolutions' site wasn't
established to accept a specific compact's waste. It is the country's
largest low-level radioactive waste dump and the only one available to
36 states.
However, lawyers for the Northwest Compact and Utah argued that
while EnergySolutions' site isn't a compact site, its existence and
operations must be authorized by the compact to meet Congress' goal of
using compacts to prevent any one state from becoming a national
dumping ground.
Fred Nelson, a lawyer from the Utah Attorney General's Office,
said that if Stewart rules in EnergySolutions' favor, Utah wouldn't
have any authority to limit where the waste it accepts comes from
under federal law.
"It becomes a technical decision as opposed to a policy
decision," he said.
For EnergySolutions, being allowed to dispose of foreign waste in
Utah is important so it can begin developing relationships with
foreign countries. It eventually wants to open up similar commercial
disposal facilities in Italy and elsewhere, although it has declined
to say exactly where.