Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
11/7/2014
While EnergySolutions had asked for a two-month extension back in September before the public comment period began on Utah’s review of the company’s performance assessment for the disposal of depleted uranium at its Clive, Utah, disposal site, it appears that public comment period will not begin until the new year. According to a Sept. 8 letter from Utah to EnergySolutions granting the extension, obtained this week by RW Monitor, the state would feel more comfortable avoiding the holidays in its public comment period. “The Department believes that it is not in the best interest of the public to start the public comment period so close to the holiday season,” Helge Gabert, Project Manager for the DU Contract for the Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste, wrote in the letter. “In order to maximize public participation, the plan is to start the public comment period on January 12, 2015, with public meetings scheduled in Tooele and Salt Lake City during the week of February 2, 2015, and end the public comment period on February 27, 2015.”
Utah’s Division of Radiation Control originally planned to release on Sept. 8 the Safety Evaluation Report for its evaluation of the PA, but EnergySolutions needed more time to officially document its answers to some of the state’s questions. EnergySolutions submitted Clive’s performance assessment for DU back in 2011 following the Utah Radiation Control Board’s 2010 decision to require a quantitative compliance period for DU out to 10,000 years, with a second qualitative review out to peak dose (approximately 2.5 million years). Subsequently, the state required additional information and a revised design for a DU disposal cell, which EnergySolutions resubmitted this summer.
According to EnergySolutions Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Dan Shrum, the company expects to be able to begin DU disposal in late 2015. “We believe the public comment period will end at the beginning of 2015,” Shrum said back in September. “The decision will most likely will be appealed, so that should be about a six month process towards the end of 2015. We believe that fall of 2015 we should be able to take depleted uranium.”
