This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
From a bribery-extortion scandal involving a state regulator to a loan guarantee for an oversight-board member and too-cozy relations with the state's political leaders - the nation's biggest commercial radioactive waste site always seems to have a black eye.
Steve Creamer, EnergySolutions' equally controversial president and chief executive officer, recognized the image problems even before buying the company formerly known as Envirocare of Utah last year from founder Khosrow Semnani.
"Khosrow built a successful business," Creamer told The Salt Lake Tribune, "but there was a lot of grief along the way."
The saga - and some might say the trouble - began in the late 1980s when Semnani teamed up with then-Radiation Bureau director, Larry Anderson, to have school-trust lands transformed into a commercial radioactive waste dump. A legislative audit four years later said the three-way, no-bid deal had shortchanged schoolchildren by $1 million.
Then, in 1996, Semnani admitted giving cash, gold coins and a Park City golf course condominium worth more than $600,000 to Anderson.
A federal judge sentenced Anderson to more than a year in prison for tax violations arising from the case. And Semnani pleaded guilty to a minor tax charge, testified for the prosecution against Anderson and paid a $100,000 fine.
Semnani's organization had a reputation for fighting critics aggressively, from suing a local environmental activist to spending $4 million to defeat a citizens initiative to raise taxes on radioactive waste.
And he was generous to allies, guaranteeing personal loans to a member of the Radiation Control Board, former Gov. Norman Bangerter and a key senator, and pumping large sums into state political campaigns.
In 2005, business boomed as the site took in more than 900,000 tons of waste and untold millions in profits that year.
Some hoped that Envirocare could leave all that behind when Creamer and a New York investment group bought the company last year. Envirocare recast itself as EnergySolutions and set out to be the leader in its industry nationally and - if plans pan out - the world.
But Creamer brought some baggage of his own to the venture. Among his most infamous exploits was the Syncrete debacle in 1989. The project involved an experimental concrete overlay on 4 miles of Interstate 15, the state's busiest highway. Material crumbled before the project was even complete, providing a boon to auto glass companies but costing taxpayers nearly $3 million to replace.
* Since it opened in 1991, the Utah Jazz home court has been known as the Delta Center. Not any more.
* EnergySolutions will have naming rights for the next decade. No dollar figures were revealed, but ESPN reports that, across the NBA, such deals range from $866,667 a year at America West Arena, home of the Phoenix Suns, to $9.3 million a year at Phillips Arena, home of the Atlanta Hawks.
* While Delta won't reveal how much it paid for the deal, the airline was honored by the Legislature for paying $25 million for a 20-year deal, which ended up lasting only 15 years.
* Monday's announcement links two businessmen with deep Utah roots: Larry H. Miller, who made his fortune selling cars, and Steve Creamer, who made his with a mammoth landfill in Carbon County.