With a June 3 deadline looming, supporters of a petition drive to raise taxes on radioactive waste say they are close to having the 76,000 signatures needed to put the initiative on the November ballot.
And with four weeks left, they expect to have close to 100,000 signatures.
"The signature gathering is going faster than we anticipated," said Mickey Gallivan, a Salt Lake advertising executive who is heading the $1 million petition drive that would impose high taxes on radioactive-waste giant Envirocare of Utah.
State law requires a minimum of 76,180 signatures of registered voters to put a referendum on the ballot, but historically a large number of signatures get thrown out, so petitioners like to have plenty of reserves.
Meanwhile, another group, Utahns Against Unfair Taxes, is gathering signatures of its own for an initiative intended to prevent the tax from becoming law.
"We've only been in the field since last week," said Hugh Matheson, an attorney who is leading the opposition. "But my sense is that it is going well."
The "Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act" would bar any hotter radioactive wastes, like medical wastes, from coming into Utah, and it would hike the tax on the low-level radioactive waste already coming here from 10 cents per cubic foot to as much as $150 per cubic foot.
Matheson's group is encouraging voters to sign the "Stop Targeted Taxes Act" that would prevent any initiative from becoming law that would assess a tax against an individual person, entity or industry.
The initiatives have nothing to do with the high-level nuclear waste, the spent fuel rods, proposed for storage at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele County.
Yet people are becoming confused, Gallivan admits.
"What gets lost is that Utah has accepted more than 14 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste. Right now, we have a tax structure that encourages mass dumping of waste here from all over the country," he said.
Envirocare, which operates the only low-level radioactive waste dump in Utah, says the tax unfairly targets the Tooele County company. And company officials say it would put them out of business.
"We're not targeting any company," Gallivan said. "We're targeting radioactive waste."
There may be a reduction in the amount of waste the company would receive as a result of a tax hike but it would not put Envirocare out of business, he added.
"This is the perfect tax," added Frank Pignanelli, a former House minority leader and lobbyist. What better way to help fund education, he said, without burdening the taxpayer? The tax would help fund education and assist the poor. It also would help Tooele County diversify its economy, Pignanelli said.
Tooele County receives about $5 million in tax revenues from Envirocare. Under the initiative, that amount would double, petitioners say.
"We are dealing in bad stuff," Gallivan said. "The reason it is regulated is because it's dangerous. As far as we are concerned, Envirocare operates a safe facility. We just don't want to encourage volume dumping in Utah."
So far, Gallivan and his group have raised $400,000 to further the initiative.
Envirocare is spending a small fortune fighting the initiative and has hired a small army of political insiders like Joe Hansen, son of Republican Rep. Jim Hansen.
"We'll spend whatever it takes to do the job," Matheson said. "These things are not inexpensive. It's an uphill battle and a lot of work to do in a short time."
E-MAIL: donna@desnews.com