Friday, December 9, 2005
| Utah N-storage takes 2 hits Utilities back away from PFS Skull Valley project WASHINGTON — Xcel Energy has put a hold on its investments into Private Fuel Storage, the company announced Thursday, edging Utah closer to victory in its fight against storing high-level nuclear waste in the state. 
Deseret Morning
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Xcel was responsible for about 34 percent of Private Fuel Storage's budget. Also Thursday, one of six other utilities in the PFS consortium that had placed a hold on its investments in 2002 —Southern Co. — completely pulled its contributions to PFS. That leaves the other five still with a hold on their investments in the proposed storage facility for Tooele County's Skull Valley, but Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said without Xcel's chunk of the funding, there is little left to support the proposed site. "The viability of the PFS proposal is seriously threatened," Hatch said. "Skull Valley is never going to happen." Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s office was pleased with Hatch's announcement but less certain that the battle has been won. "It certainly doesn't sound the immediate death knell for PFS," said Mike Lee, the governor's general counsel. "This is an early Christmas gift, but it doesn't mean that it's over." Jason Groenewold, director of the anti-nuclear group Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said he's encouraged by the Xcel development but isn't sure it means the dissolution of PFS. "This is an important development, the significance of which will play out in time," he said. "We're not ready to break out the party hats yet." He said the pullout of Southern Co. is encouraging, but he's not sure what Excel's moratorium on funding really means. "Does it mean they will not fund legal fights? . . . It feels a little bit like semantics. We'd be wise to pay very close attention to the semantics of the next move the utility companies of PFS make." Huntsman has pushed hard to stop the waste facility for up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods proposed for land owned by the Skull Valley band of the Goshute Indian Tribe. The proposal has long divided the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes, which has about 121 members. Chairman Leon Bear could not be reached for comment Thursday but in the past has said the project had the support of the majority of the tribe. In a letter sent to Hatch from its President J. Barnie Beasley Jr., he wrote: "Southern Company has determined that Private Fuel Storage, LLC (PFS) cannot be successfully developed as a spent fuel repository in a time frame to meet Southern's needs." Now only the Dairyland Power Cooperative will continue to fund the program. That utility only had less than a 12 percent share in PFS, according to Hatch's office. "At least someone will be there to turn out the lights," Hatch said at a press conference in his Senate office. Rep. Bob Bishop, R-Utah, called the announcements a "major step that it (PFS) will not be a reality." But PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said these announcements will hopefully not be as dire as the lawmakers said. She said financial support for the project is not limited, and any utility that would need a storage option can come forward and invest. She said the utilities have always been signed up to invest in one phase at a time. Now that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recommended a license for the site, it will be up to the involved utilities to make a "business decision" on whether to stay on for the construction phase. Other utilities can come in, too. "The next phase is a whole new ball game," she said. Margene Bullcreek, who organized Goshute opposition in Utah through her group Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia Awareness, said she's still ready to fight the NRC's decision based on environmental justice. She calls the proposal "environmental racism" because, she said, her tribe was targeted by a large corporation "because we're supposed to be in poverty . . . "It's good to know that this is happening," she said of the Xcel and Southern Co. actions. "They don't have as many utilities behind them now. . . . Now we've got five more to go." Charles Bomberger, Xcel's general manager of nuclear assets, said that at the time the company got involved with PFS, it was facing a waste storage shortage for its Minnesota nuclear plants. State law limited how much extra storage space could be built, so the company had to find an interim storage solution because the national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., would not open by the time it ran out of space. But in 2003, the state overturned the law, relieving pressure on Xcel to find another storage option. That change, on top of Utah's continued opposition against the Skull Valley facility and a potential resolution on Yucca Mountain were all part of Xcel's reasoning in deciding to put a hold on its PFS funding, according to Bomberger. "I think there will be a new solution coming forward, but I have no idea what it is," Bomberger said. Hatch said his cooperation with the administration and reluctance to go against Yucca Mountain and align with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., allowed him to negotiate with the utilities. Hatch would not go into detail on who in the administration helped with the negotiations or what exactly was brought to the table. He said he brought up Bishop's position on the House Rules Committee, his future chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee and the litigation options the state still can put into play. News of the financial changes came as a surprise to many on Thursday, but it was unclear why progress on Yucca Mountain seemed to be the main reason the companies changed. The project has its own set of problems, and Nevada is fighting Yucca as much as Utah is fighting PFS. "Southern and Xcel have clearly seen the writing on the wall for interim storage in Utah, but they mistakenly continue to look to the unsafe and unsuitable site at Yucca Mountain to solve their waste problem," said Michele Boyd, legislative director at Public Citizen, a nonprofit that opposes the Yucca repository. Meanwhile, Hatch and Bishop insisted that this blow to the PFS project will not cause them to back down at all from Bishop's attempt to create 100,000 acres of wilderness in Utah's western desert. The proposed wilderness designation would block PFS from building a railroad to move waste through Utah. Bishop and Hatch expect a decision on the wilderness language today.
Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche, Deborah Bulkeley E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
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