Utah review of radioactive waste plan to rev up in 2017

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — State regulators next month will rev up a stagnant review of a Utah company’s push to bury in the state’s west desert a type of radioactive waste that becomes more radioactive for 2 million years.

The seven-year effort from Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions has been stalled amid environmental reviews and questions about whether the waste, known as depleted uranium, belongs in Utah.

The Utah Department of Environmental Quality has been reviewing EnergySolutions’ plan and whether the agency will allow it to move forward, but that effort went into hibernation for much of 2016, soon after the company announced it was buying a Texas firm that’s already allowed to bury the waste in that state.

Helge Gabert, a project manager with the Department of Environmental Quality, said the review was put on a backburner this year as the agency focused its limited staff on other projects, but they’re planning to make it a higher priority starting Jan. 1.

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