Gov. Gary Herbert
The last two trains of depleted uranium from the clean up of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River site in South Carolina will not be coming to Tooele County.
Gov. Gary Herbert announced Monday that he had reached an agreement with the DOE to stop the shipments after meeting Monday afternoon with Ines Triay, the department’s assistant secretary for environmental management, in Washington, D.C.
“This is a monumental win for the state of Utah,” Herbert said. “At one point, we were told these trains were all but on the tracks, making their way to Utah. The Department of Energy has now agreed, after we registered our concerns, that those trains will head elsewhere.”
In addition to halting shipments of additional DU to Tooele, the DOE has agreed to take back 5,400 barrels of DU from one train already unloaded at Clive in December if a study reveals the material can not be safely stored at EnergySolutions’ facility there. Those barrels have been put in temporary storage.
In a process that may take up to two years, the DOE has also agreed to work with state regulators to develop a site-specific study to determine if depleted uranium can be safely stored at Clive.
Depleted uranium, while classified as low-level class A radioactive waste by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is different from other class A waste because over time it increases in radioactivity and takes a longer time to decay to a safe level. DU reaches its hottest point after a million years, according to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The NRC is in the process of setting specific rules for storing DU because of its difference from other Class A waste. That process is expected to take two years.
The length of time it takes DU to decay to a safe level makes shallow burial at sites like Clive unsuitable for long term storage of DU, according to Stephen Nelson, professor of geology at Brigham Young University and former chairman of the Utah Radiation Control Board.
However, EnergySolutions is confident a study of its Clive facility will show that it is possible to store DU at the site.
“Our interests are fully aligned with Governor Herbert’s and we welcome the responsible approach outlined by Governor Herbert to ensure that depleted uranium will be safely managed at Clive,” said Val Christensen, president and CEO of EnergySolutions. “We are confident that the performance assessment underway will verify existing data showing that Clive is suitable for permanent disposal of depleted uranium.”
The state Department of Radiation Control began Tuesday the process of independently testing the materials in the barrels at Clive.
Radiation control workers will take samples from 171 of the 5,400 barrels and send the samples to a lab in Albuquerque, N.M., for analysis.
“We will be testing to make sure the level of technetium-99 is under the acceptable level for Class A waste,” said Dane Finerfrock, director of the Division of Radiation Control.
Finerfrock said if weather permits the sampling will be done in two days and then the samples will be packaged and sent to the lab for analysis with results expected in three weeks.
If the material does not meet Class A standards, the agreement reached by Herbert calls for it to be removed from the state by the DOE.
In December, the DOE notified Herbert that it had 15,000 barrels of depleted uranium destined to be stored at EnergySolutions’ Clive facility. On December 21, with one train loaded with DU already on its way to Utah, Herbert reached an agreement for the other two shipments to be held up and the DU on the way to be put into temporary storage while the state completed new regulations governing the disposal of depleted uranium.
At that time, it was anticipated the state regulations would take two months to complete. Two months later, the Radiation Control Board has yet to adopt new DU standards. The board is currently reviewing public comment collected on their proposed rule change for DU. The proposed change would require EnergySolutions to perform a site-specific study that would prove the ability to store depleted uranium at the Clive facility. The study would take a year to perform. The Radiation Control Board could act on the rule change as early as its March 8 meeting.
Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com
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