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EnergySolutions to drop Italian nuke waste bid


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Updated: 7/15/2010 5:20 am | Published: 7/14/2010 10:00 am
Written by: Dan Metcalf Jr.
Contributor: Chris Vanocur
Contributor: Noah Bond
(ABC 4 News)
(ABC 4 News)
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Nuclear waste disposal and storage company EnergySolutions will drop its bid to bring nuclear waste from Italy to Utah's west desert.

"We've adopted a new strategy that does not include brining any international waste to the state of Utah," said EnergySolutions CEO Val Christensen.

The announcement comes after heated debate, lawsuits and political upheaval over EnergySolutions' bid to ship Italian low-level nuclear waste to the facility at Clive, Utah in Tooele County.

"I think this is a huge victory for the people of Utah," said Healthy Environmental Alliance of Utah Spokesperson Vanessa Pierce.

In a statement released on Wednesday, EnergySolutions stated that the company was "pursuing a new international business strategy the does not include the disposal of internationally-generated radioactive waste" in Clive, Utah. The statement noted that EnergySolutions would focus international nuclear waste management within the borders of foreign countries.

"In the long run it really creates national opportunities for the company that we haven't had in the past," said Christensen.

In a statement from U.S. Representative Jim Matheson (D-Utah), the congressman announced the scheduling of a news conference to discuss the announcement from "a Utah company" that was dropping its bid to import 1,600 tons of Italian nuclear waste for disposal in Utah.

Matheson sponsored a recently passed bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would make the shipping of foreign nuclear waste illegal. A companion bill recently passed committee in the Senate.
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John Farmer - 7/14/2010 9:11 PM
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Jfarmer9 The only thing that happened today is that Heal of Utah and their anti nuclear followers destroyed the State of Utah’s chance to receive millions if not billions in extra revenue for our State’s desperately spares coffers. Let us not forget that it is a fact that no one has ever died from an acute radiation dose in the western production of nuclear power. This includes the storage of nuclear by-products at the Clive facility. Not one fetus, not one child, not one adult has ever received a deathly dose of acute radiation in the western production of nuclear power. On the other hand people die every week in this State because we can not properly fund social programs that the elderly and poor so desperately rely on. This lack of funding is getting worse. I just recently read that the hundreds of people in this State who rely on free aids drugs will not be able to receive them anymore. One can expect our State like other places in the world that have cut funding for antiretroviral drugs to have a significant increase in aids cases. The safe storage of foreign waste at the Clive nuclear depository could have easily funded this and many other life saving programs. This was easy money that the State of Utah could have had and now it is apparently gone and not to be seen again. Remember that Energy Solutions founder Steve Creamer said he was more than willing to split the profits from this venture with the State of Utah. So to all the anti nukes in this State, to Heal of Utah, and to Heal's paid activists like anti nuclear zealot Christopher Thomas let me say well done. It is clear that your activism has and will cause the deaths of hundred of our State's poorest. Let me say it again well done indeed. And I also need to ask Judy Fays and the editors of the Tribune what role did they think they played in this travesty of miss information? Sleep well all sleep well. Jfarmer9
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