Article Last Updated: 12/07/2005

A.F. boss backs plan to block Utah N-dump

By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

 WASHINGTON - Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne backs a plan proposed by Utah's congressional delegation aimed at blocking a nuclear waste dump near the Utah Test and Training Range by restricting access to the Indian reservation where the storage site would be built.

Wynne signed a letter Tuesday expressing support for Utah's push to create a wilderness area in the Cedar Mountains and other land-use restrictions near the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian reservation.

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    • The secretary said the provision would address encroachment concerns raised by the proposal from Private Fuel Storage, a group of electric utilities that has received approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors on Goshute land.

    In the one-page letter, Wynne also said that the Air Force was comfortable that the creation of the wilderness area would not impair the Air Force's ability to use the range.

    "It's always a good sign when you have the secretary of the Air Force saying we're aware of this provision and we like it," said Mike Lee, counsel to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who was in Washington this week lobbying members of Congress to adopt the wilderness language.

    The restrictions would prevent a rail line from being built to deliver waste to the Skull Valley Reservation. If the provision becomes law, PFS has said it would have to truck the waste to the reservation.

    At the same time, Utah's delegation argues, the wilderness designation would protect access to the Air Force's adjacent Utah Test and Training Range. That military component of the bill makes the Air Force endorsement significant.

    The fate of the Cedar Mountain provision remains uncertain, however, and has been changing by the hour.

    It was included in the House-passed version of a major defense bill earlier this year, but not the Senate version.

    The leaders of the House Armed Services Committee continue to support the measure, but it is not clear whether their Senate counterparts will agree to include it in the final version.

    The Utah delegation declined to release the Wynne letter, but copies were sent to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the committee.
       ---
        Tribune reporter Thomas Burr contributed to this story.