SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — State regulators have denied a Salt Lake City-based nuclear waste processing company an exemption to bury thousands of tons of depleted uranium munitions at its site.
The Utah Waste Management and Radiation Control Board on Thursday voted unanimously to reject the military ordnance after EnergySolutions had petitioned the Department of Environmental Quality for an exemption to Utah's provisional prohibition on burying the radioactive munitions.
Agency staff and outside consultants concluded metallic depleted uranium is more hazardous and unstable than processing company had characterized in its presentations.
Stephen Marschke, a nuclear engineer with SC&A Consulting, told the board that the company has failed to demonstrate that the "exemption will not result in undue hazard to public health and safety or result in undue hazard to the environment."