Utah ready to officially join fight against nuke dump

Erin Neff

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2002 | 11:02 a.m.

The eyes of the world just left Utah, but Nevada officials are hoping Congress takes notice of an anti-Yucca Mountain resolution moving through that state's Legislature.

A resolution -- which could pass the state Senate today -- urges the U.S. Congress to reject the Bush administration's recommendation to store the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Utah Senate Majority Whip Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake, sponsored the resolution predominantly because of the likelihood that nuclear waste will be temporarily stored on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation as a result of the Yucca Mountain Project.

"The West seems to be targeted the most," Davis said. "We've got a lot of desert land, federal land and reservations, which they think is the best place to store nuclear waste.

"We know, having been through the above-ground and underground tests of the 1950s, that this is not the place for it," Davis said.

Senate Joint Resolution 14 cleared a Senate committee on Monday and could be voted on by the full Senate as early as today. The Utah Legislature adjourns next Wednesday at midnight, but Davis said he is confident the resolution will be approved before the session ends.

Private Fuel Storage LLC is seeking to license and construct a high-level nuclear waste storage facility on 125 acres of reservation land in the Great Salt Lake Desert, between Salt Lake City and Wendover, which lies on the Nevada border.

The Goshute nation is divided over the planned storage, with accusations that tribal leaders have improperly spent payments from a consortium of power companies seeking the storage facility.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled Monday that the tribe must divulge information on how they've spent money and what future payments are expected from Private Fuel Storage LLC. The report is due March 22.

Davis said that even if Yucca Mountain is approved it would not have the capacity to store all of the nation's waste, increasing the likelihood a temporary operation like Private Fuel Storage could be licensed as a permanent facility.

"Once Yucca Mountain opens and it is not large enough, this waste will just be sitting out in the open in containers," Davis said.

Nevada officials don't what argument is used to oppose Yucca Mountain, as long as other states voice their concerns.

"That's awesome," Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said when the resolution was described to him. "That definitely helps our fight."

The Utah resolution also opposes a national repository in Nevada because, it says, "the opening of the Yucca Mountain Project would result in more highway, railroad, or both, miles of high-level nuclear waste transportation through Utah than any other state in the nation."

The resolution also says transportation of the waste poses a risk of terrorist attack and catastrophic accidents and will decrease property values along the routes.

Since the resolution is a joint Senate and House bill -- and not a concurrent one -- it does not require action from Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.

Leavitt's spokeswoman Natalie Gouchnour said that while Leavitt has not formally stated a position about Yucca Mountain, he has joined Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn in the Western Governors Association resolution against the transportation of high-level nuclear waste.