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.