[NukeNet] Feds Reject Plan to Create Utah Nuclear Waste Stockpile

[Mike Ewall]

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11215

Feds Reject Plan to Create Utah Nuclear Waste Stockpile

September 08, 2006 — By Paul Foy, Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The U.S. Interior Department on Thursday 
rejected a bitterly contested plan to create a nuclear waste 
stockpile at an American Indian reservation in Utah's west desert.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the decision kills a proposal to store 
44,000 tons of spent fuel rods on the Goshute Indians' Skull Valley 
reservation, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

Private Fuel Storage, a group of nuclear-power utilities known as 
PFS, won a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 
February. Lawsuits, regulatory opposition and other hurdles have 
delayed the plan for years.

"PFS is dead," Hatch said. "To me, it's a great day for Utah."

The Interior Department used its power to veto a lease tribal leaders 
approved for the stockpile. The agency also refused to yield federal 
land for a transfer station where fuel rods would be moved from rail 
cars to tractor-trailers.

A spokeswoman for the utility consortium that won a license for the 
storage site suggested it was premature to call it dead.

"We have not seen the decisions or figured out what our options may 
be," PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said.

A public-health group also was cautious.

"We're a little hesitant to declare full victory on this because PFS 
has a license. It's like having a license but no car, and they've 
been told to stay off the road," said Vanessa Pierce, executive 
director of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

Private Fuel Storage billed the Goshute stockpile as temporary until 
the federal government can open a national repository at Nevada's 
Yucca Mountain. But some worried Utah could have become a "de facto" 
home for nuclear waste if the Yucca facility, which is behind 
schedule, doesn't open.