Spurred by critics of the Department of Environmental Quality's regulatory control over the storage of hazardous waste, a legislative subcommittee has agreed to seek an audit of the DEQ.
The request Monday for the audit comes from Rep. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, and Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo. They both sit on a task force looking into the state's policies on hazardous waste storage.
Dianne Nielson, DEQ director, said she welcomes the audit as a chance to receive recommendations and to help her understand the effectiveness of DEQ's regulatory program.
"We've always thought that any audits or any research that helps to clarify or verify information is helpful," she said. A recent review of DEQ's procedures by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission resulted in the "highest" ratings.
The two lawmakers asked the Audit Subcommittee of the Legislative Management Committee for a review of whether regulators are doing an adequate job in making waste-storage decisions.
The problem, Bramble says, is that critics say one thing about regulatory controls and the DEQ says another. And legislators keep getting "beat over the head" with findings from a 1992 audit that is highly critical of DEQ.
"That's 11 years ago," Bramble said after meeting with the committee. "We've requested that the legislative auditor audit the performance of DEQ as it relates to enforcing the statutory requirements."
For example, one of the questions revolves around whether the DEQ is doing everything required to ensure the health and safety of the public and the protection of the environment. The DEQ says yes, critics say no, Bramble said.
"How can we go forward on discussions of what should be done with hotter waste" with the 1992 audit still over DEQ's head, Bramble asked.
"Hotter" waste refers to Class B and C radioactive wastes, primarily the byproducts of decommissioned nuclear power plants. Waste-storage company Envirocare has proposed expanding its business to include disposal of such waste at its Tooele County landfill.
In November, the task force decided to seek an independent review of the DEQ, although it did not specifically call for a legislative audit at the time. Most task force members said they were confident in the DEQ but agreed to the audit, called for by Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan.
Critics of the DEQ have raised questions about the department's adequacy and its ability to make hazardous-waste decisions.
"Regulation has been done to facilitate full expansion of (Envirocare) far beyond what was ever intended," said Jason Groenewold, spokesman for the Healthy Environment Alliance (HEAL) of Utah. Protecting the public's health, he said, has not been a priority. And the state already appears "vulnerable" from a liability standpoint when Envirocare closes someday and Utah is left with a "radioactive hot potato."
This next audit, Groenewold said, will be pointless unless investigators ask the right questions and "dig."
Urquhart and Bramble said the audit would need to be done by May in order to give the task force time to prepare its recommendations. The subcommittee put the audit at the top of its priority list.
In November, the task force decided it would recommend that the 2004 Legislature not take any action on wastes — except to roll back recent tax and fee hikes on hazardous waste facilities, and to require legislative and gubernatorial approval of any hotter waste that has radioactivity in excess of the state and federal licenses.
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