Utah company wants Italian waste.

• Position: TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS - EnergySolutions

EnergySolutions, a Utah-based company that provides technology and services to manage and treat hazardous waste, has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to import 20,000 tons--the largest ever--of low-level radioactive waste from Italy over five years. Italy has no permanent repository to bury low-level atomic waste and has been looking overseas for help. Since closing its nuclear power industry two decades age, the country has stored the waste temporarily at power plants and other sites.

The Utah-based company plans to receive the waste at ports in New Orleans and Charleston, S.C., then transport it by truck, rail or barge to a facility in Tennessee for processing, burning and recycling. About 1,600 tons of remaining waste would then be sent to Clive, Utah, for final disposal at an EnergySolutions facility.

Federal and state lawmakers are concerned that the origin of the waste from Italy is not certain and the radioactive composition will not be known until it reaches U.S. ports. It is also uncertain whether the resulting waste, after being processed in Tennessee, will meet acceptance requirements at the Utah facility. "I'm not concerned about where it...