Utah firm abandons plan to import Italian nuclear waste

SALT LAKE CITY -- Officials with a U.S. congressman says EnergySolutions Inc. is abandoning its plans to dispose of nuclear waste from Italy in Utah.

EnergySolutions said Wednesday that a disposal facility might be put in Italy instead, according to a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.

The Salt Lake City-based company had been seeking to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy's shuttered nuclear power program. After processing in Tennessee, about 1,600 tons would have been disposed of in Utah.

The proposal drew opposition from two Republican Utah governors and led the U.S. House to pass a bill banning the importation of foreign nuclear waste. That bill has languished in the Senate.

The measure's lead sponsors, Matheson and Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., contend that the U.S. should preserve capacity at its disposal sites for domestic waste. The Utah facility is the only one available to 36 states.

EnergySolutions has said capacity is not a problem. The company has long held that it only wanted to dispose of foreign nuclear waste in an effort to build relationships with other countries and build disposal facilities abroad.