Opposition to Utah site growing

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 | 9:35 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Opposition to the proposed Private Fuel Storage nuclear waste site in Utah grows stronger as its critics fear a temporary agreement will turn into a permanent one.

The nation's nuclear waste is supposed to end up at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but as recent allegations of falsified documents have made that permanent dump's fate even more uncertain, attention could shift to a proposed storage site in Skull Valley, Utah.

"Yucca Mountain's future becomes cloudier every day," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program. Hauter called the recently revealed e-mails that indicate work had been falsified "one more nail in the coffin of Yucca Mountain."

Work continues on the Yucca Mountain dump and its supporters have said they will not comment on the e-mails' potential effect due to ongoing investigations by the FBI and the inspectors general of the Energy and Interior departments.

Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight nuclear utilities, aims to construct the above-ground temporary storage site at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

It is up to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to grant a license for the consortium to be able to receive and store waste in up to 4,000 storage containers. The site would store up to 44,000 tons of waste for 20 years, with an option to extend the license by an additional 20 years.

Utah residents and members of the Goshute tribe are protesting how the site was selected. They are warning about the dangers of moving waste across the country to Utah and are concerned about the potential health and safety risks involved with storing the waste, from radiation exposure to terrorism.

Those objections and concerns mirror Nevada's arguments against the Yucca Mountain dump.

"Our reservation is not desolate, nor is it barren," said tribe member Margene Bullcreek at a press conference at the National Press Club on Monday. Bullcreek heads an organization called Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia, which is Goshute for Timber Setting Community. "The waste storage will bring devastation to our people and future generations. The future generations do not have any part in today's decisions."

Bullcreek said because the Yucca repository may never open, the waste would just be left in Skull Valley without a permanent storage option.

"There should be no temporary site because it will become permanent," she said.

The Skull Valley debate also involves allegations of bribery and corruption surrounding the tribe's leader Leon Bear. Bullcreek and others claim they have never seen the agreement between the tribe and PFS to use the reservation land and that Bear continues to serve as the tribe's leader even though his term has expired.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman sent a letter to Public Citizen and other critics of the site Friday thanking them for their work against the project.

"Nuclear waste should be stored onsite at the facility that generated the waste until a permanent facility is available," Huntsman wrote. "Shipping nuclear waste to Utah does not eliminate terrorism or radiological risks to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, residents of Utah and communities along the transportation corridors."

Critics are pointing to problems with the plan in advance of a hearing at the NRC on Wednesday.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an NRC administrative panel, granted the state of Utah's request for an appeal to the panel's Feb. 24 decision that allowed the Private Fuel Storage project to move to a commission vote. The board found that the consortium had adequately made its case that the chance of an aircraft crash occurring in which a waste container was damaged -- and radioactivity was released -- was less than one in a million per year. But Utah disagrees.

The three-hour hearing, which will take place at NRC's headquarters in Rockville, Md., will be open to the public -- a significant change in a process that has largely been conducted behind closed doors due to the amount of safeguarded information involved.