Leavitt moves to block access to proposed Utah nuke waste dump

Thursday, Dec. 4, 1997 | 9:22 a.m.

Leavitt asked the Utah Transportation Commission to vote at its meeting Thursday to designate the 26-mile Skull Valley Road, running through Tooele County and the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, as a state road.

That would presumably give the state leverage to block shipments to the site.

"I feel confident that they'll meet my request," Leavitt said.

But the request angered Tooele County Commission Chairman Teryl Hunsaker, who said Leavitt never discussed his plans with the commission.

"If he's going to come out and take over Tooele roads, he ought to be man enough to come talk to us about it," Hunsaker said. "It's a small man's way of doing things."

The urgency, Leavitt said, was due to recent reports that the county was negotiating with Private Fuel Storage, the consortium of 11 utility companies that wants to build the storage facility.

"The county's basically said if the price is high enough, they may be interested," Leavitt said. "It's one thing to negotiate on behalf of the county, but there's a compelling state interest."

Hunsaker concedes that commissioners have talked with PFS, but denies they are blinded by dollar signs.

"We're looking at economic advantages to Tooele County and we're also considering very, very carefully the safety aspects of it," he said. "The door's open for the Tooele County Commission to go either direction."

Goshute tribal attorney Danny Quintana said that he believes the fuel rod shipments would be covered by the Interstate Commerce Act, and doubts the state can block them.

He added that he believes the state is overreacting to the tribe's application.

"I think everybody is way ahead of themselves," Quintana said.

The Goshutes have formally applied for a permit for the facility, which is being reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Leavitt has publicly declared his opposition to the facility.

He said taking control of the road is something the state would do "on a rather temporary basis," while developing a more comprehensive strategy.

That strategy is expected to be complete by the time the Legislative session begins, when Leavitt said he will ask lawmakers to grant the state additional weapons to fight the proposal.

"We intend to use all the resources of the state," the governor said.

PFS spokesman Scott Northard has said the company has leased land from the 125-member Skull Valley Band for a facility where up to 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel rods would be stored in above-ground concrete silos. The proposed site is in a desert valley about 40 miles west of Salt Lake City.

The waste would be sealed inside steel tubes at the nuclear-power plants, slipped into heavy steel casks and shipped to Utah by railroad and truck. Once at the Goshute reservation, the tubes would be pulled from the casks and lowered into storage casks with 2-foot-thick walls of concrete.

The fuel would be stored there until the federal government develops a permanent site, possibly at a mine shaft drilled into Yucca Mountain in Nevada.