Word came down last week from the Department of Energy that 14,800 barrels of depleted uranium are headed for Tooele County from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, even as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission wrangles over rules for how best to dispose of the controversial material. The news was a blow to Rep. Jim Matheson, who had asked the DOE to suspend the shipment until the rules were finalized.

Should EnergySolutions be allowed to dispose of DU? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. That’s a question scientists seem unable to definitively answer, since nobody seems to know exactly what DU does or for how long it does it.

Depleted uranium is created when naturally occurring uranium, which exists in two primary forms, U-238 and U-235, is enriched to make fuel or weapons. In the enrichment process, U-235 is removed for use, leaving behind U-238 depleted of U-235.

But unlike other forms of Class A nuclear waste, DU becomes more radioactive, not less, over time. The NRC has stated DU will be at its hottest point a million years from now. Does EnergySolutions have the ability to safely store such material in its relatively shallow landfill cells? The nearly four-year-old company will say yes. But regulators should be wary. Utahns have a right to know exactly what type of waste we’re accepting and what the long-term risks of storing that waste are to us.

Getting answers to those questions has been the focus of go-slow advocates like Matheson — and this newspaper. In June, we editorialized that a temporary moratorium was needed to study depleted uranium further, but we attached two conditions: First, that the study period be clearly defined so that the process would not drag on indefinitely. Second, that the study be science-driven, screening out the knee-jerk anti-nuclear crowd and EnergySolutions’ own PR corps.

The state Radiation Control Board appears to agree with us. After first voting to reject a moratorium on DU in September, the board seemingly reversed course in October by stating that EnergySolutions had to prove it could safely store the material — an assessment that was projected to take until December 2010.

We applauded that move. Now, however it seems the DOE is racing to get the South Carolina DU to EnergySolutions before the state or the NRC can finalize any rules for disposal of the material.

Unfortunately, this is one situation when haste can definitely make waste — waste Tooele County residents could have to deal with for a very long time.