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SALT LAKE CITY — On Tuesday, the Utah Senate President suggested that the state fire the top radiation control official because of lax oversight at the EnergySolutions radioactive waste landfill. His comments followed a blistering report by state auditors.
An audit of the state Division of Radiation Control asserts government regulators rely too heavily on EnergySolutions to police itself over what kind of radioactive waste is buried in Tooele County, resulting in little assurance prohibitions on "hotter" waste or foreign waste aren't being violated.
"As the oversight arm for radioactive waste disposal in Utah, the Division of Radiation Control is not exercising sufficient controls to detect radioactive waste banned by Utah statute," the legislative audit said.
The performance audit released Tuesday by the Office of the Legislative Auditor General recommends state regulators go beyond the so-called traditional honor system of the industry self-reporting waste disposal shipments because of Utah's unique ban and its relationship with the private company.
While the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told auditors that the division has the authority to sample incoming waste, the division has "chosen to not exercise this authority because of the regulatory model they follow," the audit said.
On a number of occasions, testing done by the company itself showed prohibited materials were already buried in the landfill. The company reported those findings to the state Division of Radiation Control. But auditors wondered why the D.R.C. doesn't do its own testing, particularly before the waste is buried.
"As the oversight arm for radioactive waste disposal in Utah, the Division of Radiation Control is not exercising sufficient controls to detect radioactive waste banned by Utah statute."
Instead, the audit stressed, the division "continues to compare itself against other states, federal rules and environmental programs that do not address the unique restrictions that are important to the Utah site."
"Prohibited radioactive waste has come to the state," said Kade Minchey, the audit supervisor.
But, the director of the Division of Radiation Control, Rusty Lundberg, defended the regulatory system.
"We think that our actions and our oversight reaffirm what we do to protect public health and safety," Lundberg said. "Now, in terms of additional areas in which to amplify that, certainly we can look to ways to improve that. And we think that's what the audit has done."
A second audit concluded that the state should be collecting more taxes from EnergySolutions. Because of the way that the law is written and the way the company is structured, some waste comes in with no taxes paid. Lawmakers referred the findings to several legislative committees for further study.
