Eight Western states have derailed EnergySolutions' plans to import nuclear cleanup
waste from Italy and bury some of it at the company's Utah landfill. Some of that waste is processed in Tennessee. The company would also like to import some of that waste here.
The issue is in the Tennessee Senate where it has died before the Finance, Ways and Means Committee, but only on a 4-3 vote. If approved, it would have asked the federal government to deny the company's request to
import 20,000 tons of Italian waste, process it at a plant near Oak
Ridge, sell the recovered metal for shielding and dispose of 1,600 tons
of waste at the mile-square landfill in Tooele County, about 80 miles
west of Salt Lake City.
Clearly leaders in the west know what's at stake. Tennessee's legislators need to add their voices blocking the import of other countries' problems into our state. We should not be the world's trash can.
-- Jim Grinstead
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