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Mary Allen, a member of the Goshute Tribe,
is opposed to the proposal of a business group to build a nuclear-garbage
dump on the sacred sites of the Native American Church in Skull Valley.
(Francisco Kjolseth/Tribune file photo)
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The federal government Friday signed off on a new home for
the nation's nuclear-plant waste - not at the proposed Yucca Mountain dump
in Nevada, but in something resembling a parking lot in the Utah desert about
an hour's drive from the state's population centers.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a license for Private Fuel
Storage LLC to store used nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian
Reservation for up to 40 years. Under the license, the $3.1 billion site could
hold more than 10 million depleted nuclear rods in 4,000 steel and concrete
containers.
The commission's 3-1 decision was historic. The Utah site is the first new
high-level nuclear facility licensed in the United States since 1973.
Still, no one expected the commission to reject the private storage proposal,
which is billed as temporary storage until the federal government opens its
own permanent repository, presumably at Yucca Mountain. Both PFS, a limited
liability company formed by eight electric companies, and the storage site's
opponents, led by the Utah government, anticipated the commission would approve
the project after eight years of legal and technical review that included
everything from customer contracts to earthquake worthiness.
"It's been a lot of years, a lot of hearings and a lot of explanation," said
John Parkyn, PFS
chairman and chief executive officer. "We're glad
it turned out this way."
Skull Valley Goshute Chairman Leon Bear did not return a phone request for
comment.
PFS says the earliest the site could open for operation is 2008. It first
needs to line up paying customers and finalize some government paperwork.
Utah vowed to keep fighting in other forums, such as the federal agencies,
the courts and in Congress. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. called the license
approval a setback, but insisted keeping spent nuclear fuel out of Utah is
"a battle I intend to win."
His chief counsel, Michael S. Lee, promised to appeal the NRC license immediately
in federal court.
"The state is fighting tooth-and-nail to kill this thing, and we will kill
this thing," he said. "We have to kill it. It's bad policy."
Utah's congressional delegation sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior
Gale Norton, urging her to use her authority over the Bureau of Land Management
and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to stop the project. PFS needs a right-of-way
grant from BLM for a 32-mile rail spur and the BIA's final approval of a
lease with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes before the project could be
built, notes the rare, bipartisan plea.
"PFS has never provided any assurance that [spent nuclear fuel] stored on
the reservation
will ever be moved, leaving open the
possibility that the Band could be permanently saddled with an environmental
hazard of gigantic proportions," the lawmakers wrote.
The consortium plans to build 100 acres of soil-and-concrete pads on the
820 acres it has leased on the reservation, which is about 45 miles southwest
of Salt Lake City. The massive casks would be stored on the pads untethered,
surrounded by a chain-link fence just across the two-lane highway to the
Skull Valley Goshute village, which is home to about three dozen tribal members.
The private storage could handle nearly all of the radioactive waste that
has been generated so far in the nation's half-century of commercial nuclear
power. But a U.S. Energy Department estimate maintains that by 2035 Yucca's
77,000-ton capacity will be filled and the nation will have an excess 40,000
tons to deal with.
The NRC made two key votes on the PFS-Goshute project Friday. They took less
than two minutes.
First the commission rejected Utah's argument that a dangerous radiation release
could result if the casks were struck by a bomb-laden jetfighter. The waste
site is planned for a location a few miles from the largest test-bombing and
pilot-training range in the mainland U.S.
The jet-crash scenario was the final one of more than 50 objections raised
by the state to the PFS plan.
After that, the panel directed NRC staff to finish drafting the license. The
dissenting commissioner said the aircraft ruling allowed too much uncertainty
in engineering calculations and computer models, given the potential harm
to the public.
"The adjudicatory effort, plus our staff's separate safety and environmental
reviews, gives us reasonable assurance that PFS' proposed [storage facility]
can be constructed and operated safely," the majority said.
Despite the new license, the consortium faces several obstacles before it
can begin taking waste.
One is the dramatic change that has occurred in the marketplace for waste
storage since the consortium was formed. Originally, 11 companies underwrote
the project. Only eight remain, and six of those have developed their own
"dry-cask" storage, usually adjacent to their reactors.
Plus, for the new license, PFS must address some questions about the project
financing. According to company attorneys, who declined to discuss proprietary
details, PFS must contract for enough waste to ensure there is enough to
bankroll the project's construction, operation and decommissioning.
PFS also must secure final paperwork needed from the BLM and the BIA - all
while beating back the state's legal, lobbying and congressional attacks.
Meanwhile, the 121-member Skull Valley Band continues to struggle with the
complications that have come along with the prospect of the waste project.
They have been promised hundreds of millions of dollars for leasing their
land, but the community has been in disarray ever since the deal was inked
in June 1997.
Their leader, who first volunteered Skull Valley land to PFS about a decade
ago, recently pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges related to tribal
funds. Bear agreed to serve three years probation, pay back taxes, pay IRS
fines and reimburse his tribe for duplicate travel payments.
Meanwhile, three Bear critics now face criminal charges in connection with
a disputed 2001 tribal election intended to unseat Bear.
The would-be vice chairman is set to be sentenced next week on theft charges.
Two other disputed leaders, along with their attorney, face trial the following
week on charges they illegally spent tribal funds.
Other members claim in federal court their civil rights are being violated
by the allegedly corrupt tribal administration.
"The NRC can now be called the Nuclear Racism Commission," said Kevin Kamps
of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Washington, D.C-interest
group opposed to the PFS site. The group attacked the license for dumping
the nation's nuclear waste on an impoverished American Indian tribe.
"The Bush administration needs to put an end to this outrage by rejecting
the rail line and the lease," he said.
fahys@sltrib.com
gehrke@sltrib.com
Why you should care:
- This is the first time federal regulators have licensed
a site that would be used for nuclearpower-plant waste independent of a reactor.
Utah has no nuclear power plants.
- 67 percent of Utah's 2.2 million residents live within
five miles of likely transportation routes for the waste.
- A typical shipment will carry 240 times the radiation of
the Hiroshima bomb. The shipment containers have only been tested with computer
modeling.
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