Utahns voice opposition to depleted uranium storage

Published: Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 6:45 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — A chorus of opposition to the storage of depleted uranium in Utah rang out Tuesday night during a public hearing on a proposed rule that would put in place additional restrictions.

The hearing, intended to gather input on those new restrictions, instead focused more on general outright opposition to storing the radioactive waste altogether.

"You err on the side of caution; you err on the side of protection," said Robert Henline, who added that it was "unfortunate he had to come before the board at all."

Provo resident Jeri Roos called depleted uranium "a very nasty waste."

"We may not understand all the science, but what matters is we don't want it," Roos said.

She said that for too long Utah has been "the dumping ground" for other states' radioactive material, and it's time to stop.

More stringent controls on site-specific storage conditions are being contemplated as EnergySolutions readies for two additional shipments that will bring the total amount of material to 10,500 tons destined for disposal at its Clive, Tooele County, facility.

Earlier this month, Gov. Gary Herbert ordered independent sampling of the first shipment of drums, which sits above ground pending the new restrictions being put into place.

Of concern is the nature of the low-level radioactive waste, which, while classified as Class A — or the least hot — has critics concerned because it grows hotter over time.

EnergySolutions landed a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to store 14,000 drums of the material in Clive, with the shipments originating at the Department of Energy's Savannah River site in South Carolina.
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process.

The department says the major health concerns about DU relate to its chemical properties as a heavy metal, rather than its radioactivity, which is described as very "low."

But critics such as HEAL Utah have urged state regulators to go so far as to put a moratorium on any shipments of the material while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission goes through its own fact finding to establish site-specific storage conditions.

They argue that its current classification as Class A waste is faulty given so many unknowns and that depleted uranium is an inappropriate material to be stored at such shallow depth offered by EnergySolutions.

Additionally, because it reaches "peak" radioactivity at a million years, they contend that any storage conditions that don't anticipate those changes fall short of protecting public safety and the environment.

The proposed rule calls for performance assessments on storage that go out 10,000 years, and the company has agreed to extend its depth of cover for disposal, as well as install radon detectors.

In addition to the public hearing, written comments are being accepted on the proposed rule until the close of business Feb. 2. They can be sent to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Radiation Control, Room 212, Airport East Business Building, 168 N. 1950 West, Salt Lake City, UT, 84114-4850.

The rule can be reviewed at http://www.radiationcontrol.utah.gov/
Read more:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/print/705361246/Utahns-voice-opposition-to-depleted-uranium-storage.html

Utah governor orders depleted uranium testing

Comment:  Utah stop being someone else dumping ground, tell SC to keep their own junk in their own yards, SC are bragging they want to be the Nuke Power in the World, so if you make it , keep it!
Posted: 2:27 PM Jan 13, 2010

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has ordered the testing of barrels of depleted uranium from South Carolina to see how radioactive it is.

Smith says the Division of Radiation Control will collect samples and send them to an outside lab for testing within two months.

Herbert's testing request comes after an environmental group says it reviewed shipping manifests for some of the waste and found the barrels contain waste in concentrations higher than state law allows EnergySolutions to accept.

Read more:
http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/81343537.html

16 million tons of uranium mill tailings moving away from Colorado River site

Comment:  No to uranium mining!

By GARY HARMON
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Sunday, December 27, 2009

Crews have taken the first bites out of the old uranium mill-tailings pile in Moab, Utah, beginning a years long process of transferring it far from the Colorado River.

Abut 630,000 tons will have been moved from Moab to the disposal cell near Crescent Junction by year’s end, said Wendee Ryan of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Energy Department and its contractor, Energy Solutions Corp., began moving the tailings pile this year.

Moab residents and downstream water providers lobbied for years to have the 16-million-ton pile of mill tailings moved from its spot along the north bank of the Colorado River to a cell up against the Bookcliff Mountains at Crescent Junction that is deemed less likely to contaminate the river.

The pile is being moved by train from Moab to the disposal cell 30 miles north.

There, the contents of each 33-ton and 40-ton container placed in the cell are marked via Global Positioning System, said Fred Smith of Energy Solutions.

The cell, in which native earth has been scoured out to form a half-mile-wide pit, will be filled with tailings and then recovered with the native earth.

Once the tailings pile has been moved, it will fill a cell about a half-mile wide and a mile long, Smith said.

The cold temperatures of recent weeks slowed the removal process a bit because moisture in the tailings wouldn’t evaporate as quickly, Ryan said.

“When there’s less evaporation in the tailings, it takes longer to condition them to an optimum moisture content” for compaction at the Crescent Junction cell, Ryan said.

When the red containers are lined up outside the cell for emptying, they’re visible from Interstate 70.

The cell itself is fenced off, and a retired uranium miner, Gilbert Randall, greets visitors at the main entry.

Read...
http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/news/stories/2009/12/27/122809_3a_Mill_tailings.html