Utah official switches gears on plan for nuclear waste

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2005 | 11:18 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A Utah senator today said he planned to introduce a "major" new comprehensive plan for dealing with the nation's nuclear waste.

Sen. Robert Bennett, a Republican, today said he would unveil the details in a speech this week.

"The whole issue of storage is evolving," Bennett said. "The energy bill made it very clear that we are on the side of nuclear power. We want more nuclear power, which raises the question of what do we do about the waste."

Bennett and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have been supportive of storing all highly radioactive waste from throughout the nation at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But the Utah delegation may be softening its stance on the proposed nuclear waste repository, in part because Utah recently moved one step closer to becoming a dumping ground itself.

On Sept. 9, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a green light to a consortium of eight nuclear power utilities that aim to establish a temporary waste site on Goshute Indian reservation roughly 45 miles from Salt Lake City. Utah political leaders have long fought the proposal. The waste site ultimately could store up to 44,000 tons of waste in steel containers.

The Goshute site is considered a stepping stone for waste that ultimately would be bound for the permanent underground repository planned at Yucca Mountain, which would have a capacity for up to 77,000 tons of waste. Energy Department officials aim to open Yucca as early as 2012, although critics say it likely would be later.

Last week Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, for the first time threw his support behind a plan advocated by Nevada lawmakers to keep high-level nuclear waste stored where it now sits -- on-site at nuclear power plants -- until a better plan or new recycling technology is developed.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is planning legislation that would require an on-site storage policy in which the Energy Department would assume ownership of the waste. But he has not yet introduced it. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., introduced a similar bill to leave waste on-site, as well as kill Yucca and use the money for reprocessing research, but it has little hope of House approval.

Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, already support the Nevadans' on-site plan.

And Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, is closer to Nevada's position than he was a year ago, although he still has not advocated killing Yucca Mountain.

There is no indication that Bennett is planning to suddenly oppose Yucca, but the suspicions are that he will be proposing some kind of compromise.

Utah leaders have faced a quandary: Advocate Yucca so that waste doesn't end up sitting long-term in Utah? Or side with the Nevadans in a unified front to keep waste out of the West?

Utah's Republican senators, Bennett and Hatch, have thus far clung to their Yucca support. Bennett today did not say if that support would change, but only said that his proposal would include a more comprehensive approach to dealing with the nation's nuclear waste.

Hatch has eyed friends and foes in the fight and is weighing strategy. Power brokers support Yucca, including most Western lawmakers and President Bush, Hatch has noted.

"If we join Sen. Reid at this time in an anti-Yucca Mountain stance, that would alienate some of those who are best positioned to help us," Hatch told the Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday.

Hatch has said it is better to leave waste where it is to await a permanent home at Yucca rather than send it to Utah temporarily.

Hatch and Bennett drew the ire of Nevada lawmakers in 2002 when they emerged from a meeting at the White House with key Bush administration officials who promised them no federal support for the Goshute site if the two senators would support Yucca. They agreed to the deal.

But it turned out to be a somewhat empty promise. The Bush administration's NRC approved the Goshute site this month. And the White House can do little to slow the Goshute project, which would be financed with corporate money.

In turn, Hatch and Bennett reportedly have not been happy with Reid. Reid, like the other Nevada lawmakers, oppose the Goshute site. But Hatch has said Reid has thwarted their efforts to fight the interim dump.

Reid is a personal friend but "he has shown that he doesn't have Utah's best interests in mind," Hatch said in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Officials with the utility consortium Private Fuel Storage say their temporary storage facility is necessary even if Yucca is opened soon. Not all waste will be shipped to Yucca immediately and the Goshute site will offer nuclear utilities some relief, they say. Many nuclear power plants have filled their indoor waste pools and are now storing waste in dry casks in outdoor, on-site storage areas.

Congress adopted Yucca as the solution to the nation's nuclear waste storage problem, and promised nuclear plants that it would begin shipping waste away by 1998. But Yucca has long been plagued by delays, prompting the nuclear utilities to seek alternatives to expensive on-site storage.