Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | 10:54 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- A proposed temporary nuclear waste storage site in Utah cleared an important regulatory hurdle Thursday, paving the way for the site widely viewed as a stopover for the nation's waste on its way to Yucca Mountain.
It is now up to the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make a final decision about whether a group of nuclear power utilities can open the storage site on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley, Utah, 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
In a 2-1 vote, the Atomic Safety Licensing Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sided with Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight nuclear utilities that aims to construct the above-ground temporary storage site. The site would have a 40-year license and up to 4,000 waste containers could be stored there. Each container is to contain 11 tons, or about 22,000 pounds, of nuclear waste.
The board has been considering the consortium's application for a license for eight years.
The board in 2003 initially rejected the license application because of concerns about a possible aircraft crash into nuclear waste canisters stored on the Goshute site. About 7,000 F-16 flights are made annually over Skull Valley from nearby Hill Air Force Base.
But the board in a 68-page ruling on Thursday said 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 1 in 1 million per year.
It's unclear what the ruling could mean for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca critics had mixed views about the rulings impact.
Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office, said the ruling does not have any direct implications for the Silver State, but it could help in the fight against the repository.
Because the nuclear utilities aim to win NRC approval and open the site by 2007, a site in Utah could bring national attention to shipping nuclear waste sooner than anticipated. Nevada officials have long tried to draw national attention to the risks of transporting the nation's nuclear waste across the country.
"Once stuff starts hitting the road people are going to go ballistic," Loux said.
Loux said a loud outcry on proposed shipping routes would "poison" the Energy Department's plan to ship spent nuclear fuel to the proposed permanent repository at Yucca. He said some cities are aware of a potential national shipping campaign to Yucca Mountain, but may not have any idea waste could be shipped much earlier to Utah.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said as long as the idea of moving nuclear waste remains abstract, no one takes it seriously, but as soon as it becomes a real thing, the argument will gain more significance.
"I don't care if they are talking about shipping nuclear waste to Nevada or Utah, it's a bad idea," Berkley said. "As soon as the public wakes up to the fact that shipments of nuclear waste would be traveling through their neighborhoods, on their roads, near their schools or homes, it would put an end to the shipments of nuclear waste."
Berkley said the bigger question is not what the Utah site means for the Yucca repository but what Yucca means for Utah. With constant delays on the repository, Berkley said an interim site could easily become a permanent one with none of the appropriate safety standards.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said "Utah has opened the door to becoming a permanent repository."
The consortium will not have to disclose routes or be held to the same set of rules the government would be when designing a transportation plan, Loux said. Public interest groups mobilized against moving nuclear waste will undoubtedly point that out to residents along routes, he said.
"I don't think there will be a shortage of messengers," Loux said.
Moving waste to Utah might also prove to be too expensive for nuclear utilities, which may opt to simply increase more dry cask storage at their plants instead.
Some Yucca critics said the Utah site would make it harder to stop Yucca because it puts the waste so much closer to the permanent Nevada repository. It also establishes transportation routes, which are now viewed as a point of controversy and a potential obstacle to the Yucca plan.
"We've seen the Goshute site as a big stepping stone to Yucca Mountain for a long time," said Kevin Kamps, a waste transportation specialist with Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), which opposes Yucca and the Utah site.
The Goshute site is effectively an "end-run" around the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and takes waste off the hands of the utilities faster, and ultimately to Yucca sooner, Kamps said. The federal act established Yucca -- not temporary private sites -- as the nation's solution to its nuclear waste storage problem.
Like Nevada and its decades-long battle against Yucca Mountain, Utah lawmakers also oppose the Goshute site.
Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett met with Bush chief of staff Andrew Card and then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham at the White House, shortly before Congress approved Yucca in 2002. Card and Abraham promised the senators that the White House would push for completion of Yucca over the Goshute site in exchange for their votes for Yucca. That would put financial pressure on the nuclear utilities to wait until Yucca is complete, when the federal government would pay to ship the waste to Nevada.
Hatch is mulling a strategy to continue fighting the Goshute site in Congress, in the NRC licensing process, and in other venues, Hatch spokesman Adam Elggren said. He declined to offer specifics.
"I strongly disagree with the board's decision, but to be honest I expected it to go this way," Hatch said in a statement. "There seems to be a bias within the NRC in favor of the nuclear industry on this issue, and we have already set our sights on other ways to stop this plan."
The Goshute site, if opened, will put more pressure on the government to open Yucca, said Steve Kraft, director of waste management for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the leading industry lobbying group and an active Yucca advocate in Washington.
"The Goshutes only accepted it on the basis that it goes somewhere else," Kraft said.
The industry is pleased with the board's decision, but has not been advocating for the Goshute site as hard as it has for Yucca. The Energy Department would pay to ship waste to Yucca; the nuclear utilities would pay to ship waste to the Goshute site.
NEI spokesman Mitch Singer said there is no connection between the two programs. Utah is a private, temporary site while Yucca is a public, permanent one, he said. Nuclear ratepayers have already put roughly $20 billion toward building Yucca.
Critics of Yucca and the Goshute site said the Utah project's approval would put the industry in a position to negotiate for a larger on-site storage area at Yucca's surface.
"From the industry's perspective, this allows them to say, 'Well, we can pay to move it ourselves to Utah, or we can ask DOE, 'Why don't you just set up a parking lot for it (at Yucca)?' " said NIRS executive director Michael Mariotte.
The Utah site licensing process may shed some light on what could be in store if the Energy Department turns in a Yucca license application.
Attorney Joe Egan, who represents Nevada on Yucca Mountain issues, said the state would learn a lot from Utah's case in its own fight against nuclear waste.
The issue of aircraft crashes will be relevant due to Yucca's proximity to Nellis Air Force Base. Egan also worked with Utah on its aircraft crash analysis and recommended experts for Utah to use on the issue, he said.
Loux said there are more flights and more artillery used at Nellis than at Hill Air Force Base.
"They (the board) are not going to be able to compare," Loux said.
Egan said the commission's licensing process was only supposed to take about two years but went on for nearly eight. This shows that anticipated schedules are not always possible to reach, he said.
"'I would be very surprised if the four-year (Yucca) time frame can be met," Egan said. "Private Fuel Storage sort of illustrates this in spades."
But Kraft said there is a clear difference between the projects.
"PFS is not under a statutory timetable," Kraft said. "Agencies are supposed to follow the law, we're all supposed to follow the law."
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act limits the commission to three years to review the Yucca application. Congress can approve an additional year if needed. The department aims to submit the Yucca application by the end of this year.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., does not believe that it would be more difficult to fight Yucca if waste is ultimately moved to the temporary site in bordering Utah, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.
"Sen. Reid doesn't believe Yucca will ever open," Hafen said.
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