Gordon Questions Plan To Import Nuclear Waste Into U.S.
February 4, 2008, WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon is asking a compact of states to withhold support for a license application filed by the Utah-based company EnergySolutions to import low-level radioactive waste from Italy, process it in Tennessee and dispose of the waste in Utah.
On Friday (Feb. 1), Gordon asked the Northwest Interstate Compact for Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management to consider the long-term storage needs of the United States. The U.S. has a long-term storage challenge for both low-level and high-level waste, and many European countries face exactly the same challenge, wrote Gordon in his letter to the Compact.
Gordon contends the Utah facility should not be viewed as a “convenient alternative” for Europe’s problems in finding disposal sites.
“EnergySolutions’ exploitation of a loophole in our country’s nuclear waste regulatory framework and its agreement with the Compact could put the United States on a path to becoming the world’s nuclear waste dump,” Gordon said. “I refuse to believe this was the intention of the Compact when approval of the disposal site was granted in 1998.”
The Northwest Compact is comprised of eight states: Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Hawaii, and Alaska. The Compact allows EnergySolutions to take waste from outside the Compact because it serves “an important national purpose,” but the Compact has reserved the right to “modify or rescind” its authorization at any time.
EnergySolutions, which operates the only private Class A low level radioactive waste disposal in the United States, has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to permit it to take 20,000 tons of waste from decommissioned nuclear reactors in Italy. The company disposes of more than 90 percent of the low level radioactive waste generated in the United States through a license granted by the State of Utah and with the permission of the Northwest Compact. Federal regulations require the approval of the state and the Compact in which the disposal site is located.
This application marks the first time in the history of the NRC that a company has asked to dispose of large amounts of foreign-generated waste in the United States. Gordon has said the application did not appear to represent a “one-time” event because EnergySolutions, a publicly traded company, had made clear its intent to pursue decommissioning work in both the United States and Europe.
“It is highly likely that this is the first application with a string to follow,” Gordon said. “The U.S. already faces capacity issues and other challenges in treating and disposing of radioactive waste produced domestically. We should be working on solving this problem at home before taking dangerous waste from around the world.”
To read Bart's Feb. 1 letter to the Northwest Compact, click here.
To read Bart's Nov. 2007 letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, click here.
