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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Radiation Control Board voted unanimously to voice its opposition to the state Legislature's move to dismantle the organization, declaring the change is ill advised and members should have been consulted.
In an emergency vote on a "position statement" Wednesday, the five members present approved sending the document to all 104 members of the Legislature and Utah Gov. Gary Herbert.
The action is in response to SB244, sponsored by Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, which passed the Utah Senate on Wednesday and now awaits Herbert's signature.
Dayton's measure, which has the nod of Utah Department of Environmental Quality's executive director Amanda Smith, combines two divisions under Smith's purview — Radiation Control and Solid and Hazardous Waste.
The statement indicates the Radiation Control Board is not opposed to the merger, but points out marrying the two boards will significantly expand the scope of issues under the new board's scrutiny and result in longer meetings.
Smith said she feels the new board will be up to task.
"We have felt that those two boards are under-utilized," compared to the workloads handled by other boards such as air quality, drinking water or water quality, she said. "Both of those boards are operating at a much smaller capacity than those other three boards. They don't meet as often or pass as many rules."
Dayton's measure creates a new board with up to 12 members, rather than the traditional nine representatives on other boards.
Representatives from the radiological community, Smith added, feel their numbers have been "diluted' because the board's composition is bigger.
"That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It has been my experience that other board members tend to defer to ones with industry experience."
Over the past five years, she added, the radiation board has passed only three substantive rules dealing with the fields of X-ray and medical use, and no public comment was received.
Radioactive waste watchdog organizations like HEAL Utah complained that the board composition weakens oversight of industry in general and EnergySolutions in particular. EnergySolutions operates the low-level radioactive waste dump in Tooele County.
"We decided early on that we didn't have any problem with the merger," said HEAL's director Matt Panceza. "We waited and waited and waited to see what the board composition would look like and we were really unhappy. It is significantly more dominated by the industry it regulates. It is going to make it that much more challenging of an environment to raise issues on nuclear waste and hazardous waste and that concerns us."
Smith said she believes the board's role will not be diminished.
"The bill does not change any of our authority and all the industry reps who sat on the old boards sit on the new board," Smith said. Advocates do not have as many seats under the new composition, but the overall seats have diminished by six.
"The combination of two divisions and bringing together the boards has nothing to do with EnergySolutions except that the reorganization that we will do will provide a higher quality and more consistent regulatory oversight," Smith countered.
The proposed merger and consolidation of the boards have been under discussion since late last fall and are part of an overall strategy by the state environmental agency to streamline its operations and become more efficient, Smith said.
Pancenza said Utah's environmental regulatory boards are already too cozy with industry, and Dayton's bill takes that relationship to an expanded degree of warmth.
"It's not like it is an easy environment now for passing rules to require more strict oversight of industry," he said. Email: amyjoi@deseretnews.com Twitter: amyjoi16
