Sparks fly over radioactive waste site

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 31, 1997 | by Timothy W. Maier

A Salt Lake City trash-company executive has been caught in a dirty scandal. The company's president claims he was extorted by a state official so his company could open a trash dump -- a site where the federal government plans to dispose of its radioactive dirt.

The scandal, now under investigation by the FBI, became public when Larry Anderson, the former director of the Utah Bureau of Radiation Control, admitted accepting $600,000 in cash and property from Envirocare President Khosrow Semnani between 19X7 and 1993. The admission came when Anderson retired and subsequently sued Envirocare for an additional $5 million, claiming he was underpaid.

Envirocare is a company that owns the only commercial site in America accepting dirt contaminated with low-level radioactive waste. Located in Tooele County, the site's waste includes by-products from federal research labs, bomb-making plants and warehouses that have been cleaned up by U.S. Energy and Defense departments.

In the lawsuit, Anderson says Semnani paid him $600,000 in stacks of $100 bills, gold coins and a resort condominium. Extortion? Not so, claims Anderson. The payments were part of an oral contract where he acted as a consultant to Envirocare and was supposed to earn 5 percent of the revenues from the dump, according to the lawsuit.

Semnani disputes that contention and has filed a $3.6 million counter-suit, seeking the return of the condo. He says he is the victim in an "ongoing felonious practice of extortion." Semnani paid because he feared Anderson would use his official position to deny an operating permit to Envirocare, the counter-quit claims.

Anderson claims the deal was a business contract formed after receiving "informal advice" from the Utah attorney general's office. Tod Utzinger, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, says no one gave such advice. Instead, Utzinger says the case was turned over to the FBI on Feb. 22 because they have "better resources" to investigate it than Utah.

Both men face potential legal troubles because state law forbids public officials from accepting more than $50 from companies they regulate. The law also stipulates that extortion claims are not viable excuses for making payments.

Neither Anderson nor his attorney were available for comment. Envirocare released a statement claiming the company acted fully within the law.

Meanwhile, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental watchdog organization, is trying to revoke Envirocare's disposal permit. The council claims the alleged extortion caused a conflict of interest which inhibited a thorough review of the Tooele County low-level radioactive waste site. It appealed an early February ruling by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that found the unresolved scandal did not compromise safety at the disposal site.