| Article
Last Updated: 10/27/2005 |
| Foreign
N-waste arrives in Utah Truckloads of radioactive ore from Japan began arriving this week at International Uranium Corp.'s mill in San Juan County, stirring up questions about Utah's future as a worldwide repository for waste. It turns out that the state of Utah has no ban on radioactive material from foreign sources, nor any special oversight of it. And even the federal government appears limited in its authority to stop waste at the nation's borders. The lack of controls concerns many Utahns, given that the state has one uranium mill, the nation's only privately owned and operated landfill for low-level radioactive waste and a proposed storage site for high-level nuclear waste. State Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, and Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, said the question of foreign waste never came up during their two-year study of the industry as co-chairmen of the legislative Waste Task Force. Urquhart said the Japanese shipments may have caught the attention of policy makers. "It raises a lot of questions," he said. And one is, "Do we want to be the dumping ground for the world?" Said Bramble: "We probably ought to have that discussion" about accepting foreign waste. Utah's concerns aren't unique. Five years ago Washington state tried unsuccessfully to call for more state and federal control of foreign shipments to its Hanford landfill. Then-Gov. Gary Locke appealed to the Clinton White House. The Democratic governor said foreign waste should be carefully monitored and regulated and, "at the very least . . . should require the consent of a competent authority within our country. "Yet, in reviewing this particular situation, the state of Washington became aware that neither we nor the federal government has the authority to ban the importation of this type of nuclear waste," Locke wrote in his Aug. 2, 2000 letter. "The state of Washington or any other state for that matter, should not be vulnerable to the importation of foreign radioactive waste." No federal action resulted. In Utah, how regulators deal with nuclear material - domestic or foreign - depends on technical standards written into each operating license, said Dane Finerfrock, director of the Utah Division of Radiation Control. As long as companies meet the conditions of the license, such as packaging and radioactivity levels, the state would sign off on any shipment regardless of its origin, Finerfrock said. He added that the state has no authority over the proposed Private Fuel Storage high-level waste site in Tooele County. Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage LLC, said the federal license granted last month by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not cover waste from outside U.S. borders. "That's what we stated in our license, that the purpose of our facility is for commercial spent fuel from our power plants in the U.S.," she said. "It's never been our purpose to take foreign fuel or nuclear material from the military." Envirocare did not respond to requests for comment about the foreign waste. The site has accepted more than 166 million cubic feet of radioactive and hazardous waste in 17 years. Company officials have said Envirocare has not taken foreign contracts, and, according to Finerfrock, the company told the state it won't take foreign waste. The federal government would have to license any waste that might come into the country. Its main concerns also would be technical, such as whether the disposal site is licensed to take such waste and whether the waste could be used for a nuclear bomb. Janice Owens, who reviews import and export licenses for the NRC, said her agency would consult with state regulators and seek public comment on import requests. "I don't know if we would be able to approve a license if there were strong [philosophical] objections," she said. Ron Hochstein, president of International Uranium, noted that the waste from Japan is ore that is allowed under a general license that used to be administered by the NRC but is now overseen by the state. "There was always communication between us and the state with this," he said. Earlier this month, shortly after reports surfaced in Japan and Washington state about the shipment, state regulators asked Hochstein's company to send more details, such as IUC's technical assessment that confirmed the Japanese material was ore and not recyclable waste for which IUC would have to get special permissions from the state and the federal government. "It's very low radioactivity," he said. "It's no different than the stuff that people used to bring to us in their pickups" or that used to roll through downtown Salt Lake City on the way to the defunct Vitro mill in South Salt Lake. Activist Steve Erickson, who obtained e-mails and other paperwork on the Japanese shipment from state regulators, said the state showed interest only after press reports. Those records also show that a state consultant had contacted the NRC about "possible importation of [low-level radioactive waste] from the State of South Australia," presumably to Envirocare, which is the only facility in the state licensed to take such material. "The state of Utah needs to flex its regulatory muscles because they seem a tad flabby at this point," Erickson said. "IUC has been for a decade the invisible dump in this state," he added, "and that has got to end." fahys@sltrib.com |
