State's Waste may go to Utah -Reply

[Jim Hardeman <Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us>]

Yes, I DO know about this ... 

Among my many tasks, I'm an Alternate Commissioner from
Georgia on the Southeast Compact Commission. What the
article DIDN'T point out is that South Carolina withdrew from
the Compact earlier this summer ... leaving us with only
SEVEN states ... and NO DISPOSAL SITE. Under the
"interstate commerce clause exemption" granted to
Compacts by Congress, Compacts have the authority to
regulate both the import and export of low-level waste into
and out of their borders. As did the other Compacts, the
Southeast Compact had an export policy which, in effect,
said that all waste acceptable for disposal at its "regional
facility" (i.e. the Barnwell site) was to be shipped there.
Under that policy there was an "export" ban ... and a
procedure for application to export waste that was
unacceptable for disposal at the regional facility.

With the loss of the regional disposal facility when SC
withdrew from the Compact, our export policy (and the export
ban enacted subsequent to that policy) became moot ... we
no longer had a disposal site. As a matter of course,
however, we DID vote to allow export of waste from the
region, including to the Envirocare facility in Utah.

>>> COLTON, ROGER  09/01/95 08:27 >>>
Low-level radioactive waste may be shipped to a desert
landfill in Utah, "spoiling" South Carolina's efforts to punish
North Carolina for not opening a  landfill on time.  North
Carolina originally agreed to complete a low-level  nuclear
waste landfill in Wake county by 1993, but a license to build
has been  delayed until at least 1997.  South Carolina has
reopened its Barnwell low-level waste landfill, but banned
North Carolina from using it.  North Carolina  officials say that
marketing efforts by Enviro Care Inc., a waste transport and 
processing company, may help the eight-member southeast
compact dispose of  waste.  The compact last week
authorized 200 factories, nuclear plants and  hospitals to
ship their waste to Enviro Care's facility in Clive, UT.