SALT LAKE CITY -- The U.S. Department of Energy says it is considering Nevada as an alternative disposal site for nearly 15,000 drums of depleted uranium from South Carolina currently scheduled to come to Utah.
Another option would be to keep the material at the Savannah River Site until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission finalizes new rules for disposing of the low-level radioactive waste.
A decision is expected as early as next week.
Uncertainty over the waste is the result of state regulators saying more time is needed to ensure a private disposal facility in the west Utah desert can safely handle the material in the future.
Depleted uranium is different from other waste disposed at the Utah site because it becomes more radioactive over time for up to 1 million years. The material is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process that was used to make nuclear weapons in the Cold War era.
Since 2003, nearly 20,000 55-gallon drums of depleted uranium from the Savannah River facility near Aiken, S.C. have been disposed of, most in Utah.
The Department of Energy had planned on using federal stimulus money to dispose of the remaining drums at EnergySolutions Inc.'s facility about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City by this spring, with the first shipments leaving South Carolina this month.
But the proposed shipments drew opposition from an environmental group and U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. Matheson wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu in September asking him to suspend shipments from the Savannah River Site and to postpone any decisions on the disposal of waste from DOE sites in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky., until the NRC finalizes rules on disposal.
The federal rule making process for the waste isn't expected to be finished until 2012 at the earliest.
DOE spokeswoman Lauren Milone said a decision on the waste will be made "within the next week or so."
"At this time we are in contact with the regulators and others to understand all sides and will make a decision shortly on disposal of the Savannah River Site Depleted Uranium," Milone wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Matheson spokeswoman Alyson Heyrend said Matheson's staff met with DOE officials last week and learned that the waste is sitting on rail cars in South Carolina and ready to be shipped at any time.
One alternative the DOE has been considering is sending the waste to the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles north of Las Vegas.
A Nov. 17 presentation given to the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board said, "If shipments are interrupted to Clive, Utah, shipments will be diverted to NTS using modified cargo containers."
It wouldn't be an unprecedented move. In the past fiscal year, more than 4,000 drums of depleted uranium were sent by truck from the Savannah River Site to Nevada, according to the presentation.
However, the presentation notes that sending the waste to Nevada could increase costs up to 35 percent and delay the project's completion by at least 12 months.
Milone did not respond to questions about why it would take longer and cost more to ship it to Nevada although the presentation says that the waste would have to be shipped in 640 trucks instead of 144 railcars to Utah.
It also was not immediately clear how much money would be spent disposing of the waste in Utah, how many jobs were expected to be created or if there was a deadline to spend the money.
Vanessa Pierce, executive director of the nuclear waste watchdog group Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said she fears the DOE may ship at least some of the depleted uranium to Utah before the Utah Radiation Control Board can finalize its own set of rules for ensuring EnergySolutions' facility is suitable for large quantities of depleted uranium. That rule making process isn't expected to be finished for several more months.
"This is all being driven by stimulus money. This is one instance where health and safety in the long term could be compromised because of a desire to have some short term jobs," she said. "There's no health or safety reason to move this material at this time. Ultimately, it does need to be disposed of in an adequate facility, but let's wait and see what the rule making process comes up with."
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On the Net: EnergySolutions Inc. www.energysolutions.com
Department of Energy http://www.energy.gov/
Nevada Test Site http://www.nv.doe.gov/nts/default.htm
Savannah River Site http://www.srs.gov/general/srs-home.html
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