SALT LAKE CITY - About 6,500 tons of low-level radioactive waste from South Carolina won't be coming to Utah as originally planned, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Monday in announcing a verbal agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy, the Associated Press reports.
Herbert said in a statement that the agreement will keep two trainloads of depleted uranium from the Savannah River Site from being disposed at EnergySolutions Inc.'s facility in Utah's west desert.
It wasn't immediately clear if the low-level radioactive waste would remain in South Carolina or be disposed of elsewhere. In a Nov. 17 presentation given to the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board, the DOE said if shipments to Utah were interrupted, the waste would be diverted to the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles north of Las Vegas.
Energy Department spokeswoman Jen Stutsman wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the DOE is examining future options for disposing of depleted uranium.
"This includes examining additional disposal locations beyond the State of Utah, continued assessment of Utah's disposal criteria to ensure safe storage and increased testing of waste to ensure it meets Class A standard," she wrote.
Depleted uranium is different from other low-level radioactive waste disposed of in Utah because it becomes hotter over time, for up to 1 million years. The Utah facility is only licensed to accept Class A waste - the least hazardous kind.
State regulators and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are currently developing new guidelines for how the material should be safely disposed.
For months, the planned shipments drew opposition from environmental groups who said federal officials were trying to send the waste to Utah before new guidelines could be put in place. One train carrying 3,500 tons of the waste has already dropped off its haul in Utah, although it hasn't been disposed of yet.
Funding for the waste's disposal came from federal stimulus money, which was intended to quickly create jobs. The rule making process for disposing the material likely won't be finished until 2012 at the earliest.
The waste already in Utah won't be disposed of until that rule making is finalized, according to Herbert spokeswoman Angie Welling. If state officials determine the waste can't be disposed of safely, the DOE will remove it from Utah, she said.
Welling said a written agreement likely wouldn't be in place for several days.
(This item was distributed Feb. 23, 2010, by the Associated Press.)
