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TOOELE COUNTY -- Watchdogs are crying foul over the latest EnergySolutions revelation: that hotter nuclear waste has been stored at the company's Clive facility.
EnergySolutions notified state regulators in December when it discovered four companies, as well as NASA, had sent shipments of waste that exceeded levels of radioactivity permitted at the Clive facility.
The fact that [EnergySolutions] didn't even know just what was in the waste containers is a huge breach of public trust.
–Chris Thomas, HEAL Utah
#thomas_quote
In total, 23 containers were flagged. EnergySolutions said those are the only 23 containers the past 20-plus years of the company's existence. They equal .0003 percent of all the containers in Clive.
But environmental watchdogs are saying this shouldn't have happened, and it should never happen again. Their complaint isn't so much with the amount, rather the principal of the matter.
Leaders from the HEAL Utah organization the point is Utah's nuclear waste laws can't be disregarded.
"EnergySolutions' job is to know about nuclear waste and how to manage the nuclear waste," the group's executive director, Chris Thomas, said Thursday. "The fact that they didn't even know just what was in the waste containers is a huge breach of public trust."
The four companies and the space agency were cited and fined.
EnergySolutions' boss joined the Doug Wright Show on KSL Newsradio Thursday morning and said he expects his company to be fined as well. But he also defended EnergySolutions' safety record and compliance.
Christensen said the containers were improperly manifested, but his company still should have picked up on the problem.
This waste will probably stay put. Experts say that's a safer option than digging it up and moving it.
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Story written by Andrew Adams, with contributions from Amy Joi O'Donoghue.
