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Envirocare Expansion is Not Done Deal, State Official Says

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 October 2005, 15:00 CDT

By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News

An information summary by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gives the impression that Envirocare of Utah's proposed doubling of its disposal area is a foregone conclusion.

But a state official says that is not the case.

The summary is part of an NRC document posted on the Internet, "Items of Interest (for the) Week Ending Sept. 30, 2005." It discusses activities of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Standards.

Office staff members participated in a meeting of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Forum, held in Las Vegas on Sept. 22-23, according to the document. Among other items summarized was the following reference to Envirocare, the low-level radioactive waste disposal facility operating in Tooele County:

"Utah summarized its pending decision that will double the Envirocare licensed land area. The state could approve that proposal in early 2006."

By law, before any expansion is permitted, the state's Radiation Control Board, Legislature and governor must approve.

The phrase in the meeting notes, "will double," makes it seem as if the decision already has been made. That prospect concerns Jason Groenewold, director of the Health Environment Alliance of Utah, a group fighting against the expansion.

"It's alarming that the state of Utah is poised to fast-track a decision that could lock Utah into another half century or more of being the nation's nuclear waste dump," Groenewold said.

Bill Sinclair, deputy director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality and the state's representative to the forum, said the expansion is not a foregone conclusion. He was the official who briefed the forum on the Envirocare matter.

"What I represented to the forum was just a statement of facts of where we were in the process," Sinclair said.

He noted that the briefing happened after the initial decision by the board to approve the expansion, and before HEAL won a right to challenge the board.

Sinclair said he let it be known that besides regulatory approval, the expansion still needed authorization by the governor and Legislature.

"Everybody in the forum knows that," he said.

Most likely, NRC representatives attending the meeting thought that if no hearing was requested, the governor and Legislature could consider the expansion during the next legislative general session - - thus the January 2006 date mentioned in the summary.

Is the expansion still up in the air?

"It is," Sinclair said. "The board will schedule the hearing and then they'll hear the merits of the appeal."

Sinclair said the Radiation Control Board will decide on Nov. 4 the schedule for the hearing at which HEAL will detail its objections to the expansion.

E-mail: bau@desnews.com

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

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