Maybe the Beltway bureaucrats didn't get it. Utahns don't want the Beehive State to be considered the "solution" to the nation's radioactive waste problems.
It appears that Utah has dodged that bullet for now. Envirocare of Utah has withdrawn a federal application to accept hotter waste at its storage facility in Tooele County. But state lawmakers must now enact legislation to prohibit hotter radioactive waste from entering Utah in the future.
While such a law may not be necessary immediately, it's important to set down the state's position in statute so that private industry, Congress and federal agencies fully comprehend that Utah won't be a dumping ground for waste that other states don't want or that the federal government has agreed to remove from their borders. If this waste is as safe as it is purported to be, why transport it across the country? Why not dispose it in a facility closer to where it was generated?
Part of the problem is the attitude of some Washington bureaucrats who view the West as a garbage can. They surmise that Westerners are so hungry for jobs and tax revenue, they'll accept just about anything to keep their struggling state economies afloat.
Such perceptions couldn't be more off the mark. Westerners care deeply about these issues and they should have a say regarding the type and degree of waste that enters their respective states for disposal in private-sector facilities.
Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, is proposing legislation that would require legislative and gubernatorial approval for any radioactive waste hotter than what the state allows to be disposed of at Envirocare's landfill in Tooele County. Without seeing something on paper, it would be premature for us to endorse his proposal, but Urquhart appears to be on the right track.
Whatever the Legislature decides on this issue and whether lawmakers and the governor will permit Envirocare to accept Class B and C waste under state regulation will be subjects of spirited public debate. That's how the process is supposed to work.
Contrast that to the proposed handling of the Fernald waste, which consists of mill tailings from high-grade ore from the Belgian Congo that was used for atomic bomb production. For at least four years, federal officials considered disposing of the Fernald waste at Envirocare, according to some federal documents. The public was unaware of the federal government's intentions until this year, when wording to facilitate the storage of the waste in Utah was inserted in an appropriations bill now before Congress.
For a public policy issue of this magnitude, that's an appalling way for government to operate.