Gordon Letter to the NRC Urging Them to Reject Bid for Disposal of Foreign Radioactive Waste in the U.S.
February 12, 2008
The Honorable Dale Klein
Chairman
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
11555 Rockville Pike
One White Flint North
Rockville, Maryland 20852
Dear Chairman Klein:
On November 27, 2007, I wrote to you to express my concerns about an application submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by EnergySolutions, Inc., for a license to import 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) into the United States from Italy for treatment and disposal. Yesterday, the NRC published a notice setting a 30-day comment period for that application in the Federal Register.[1] The waste would result from a contract between EnergySolutions and Sogin, a government-owned Italian company, which is decommissioning several nuclear reactors. The waste would be processed in Tennessee with the resulting product to be disposed of in EnergySolutions’ Clive, Utah, Class A disposal site. This application is the first attempt by a U.S. waste processing company to import large amounts of LLRW as part of an agreement to decommission foreign nuclear reactors and, if granted, it is anticipated that many other such license applications will follow.
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