Utah Takes Nuclear Waste From States With Own Dump

While waste is created around the country at nuclear power plants, hospitals, universities and research labs, only three states — South Carolina, Utah and Washington — currently have disposal sites because of the expense of creating facilities and public opposition to hosting them.

The Hanford site near Richland, Wash., is closed to all but 11 Western states, and South Carolina hasn't accepted waste from outside the three-state Atlantic Compact of South Carolina, New Jersey and Connecticut since July.

The 3.6 million cubic feet of Class A waste disposed of at EnergySolutions Inc.'s Utah facility by the Atlantic Compact is more than 50 times greater than the amount of Class A waste it disposed of at its own site near Barnwell, S.C., since the compact was formed in 2000.

It also represents more than 13 percent of the Class A waste volume disposed of in Utah in the same period, according to Department of Energy records.

Atlantic Compact chairman Benjamin Johnson wrote in March 2007 that there was 1.2 million cubic feet of capacity remaining at the South Carolina landfill.

Between then and May 2009, the three states disposed of more than 300,000 cubic feet of Class A waste in the Utah desert, about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City, records show. The Barnwell site accepted 12,000 cubic feet in that same time, including more dangerous Class B and C waste, which isn't allowed in Utah.