NRC is Unlikely to Back Utah on Nuclear Waste Protest
Sep. 8–Utah’s leaders are offering little hope that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will reject a nuclear waste storage site in the state, as commissioners prepare to meet Friday on Utah’s last remaining objection.
Friday’s scheduled vote is whether to affirm a technical board ruling that the waste containers won’t release too much radiation if a jet fighter crashes into them. Once that’s done, commissioners would be free to sign off on Private Fuel Storage’s license to store 44,000 tons of nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, conceded Wednesday that a ruling against the state is probable.
“They just want to get it off their hands, and that’s always been the case,” Hatch said.
Sen. Bob Bennett said the storage site would still face many obstacles.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they vote to license the facility, but as I said all along, licensing the facility doesn’t mean it’s going to get built,” he said.
Private Fuel Storage, a group of electric utilities, wants to store reactor fuel on the reservation, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, until a permanent dump is built, presumably at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
PFS originally estimated the project’s cost at $3.1 billion, with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars set to go to the 121-member Skull Valley band for leasing 820 acres for up to 40 years.
It was unclear Wednesday how far the NRC would go this week in deciding the PFS issue. It has tentatively scheduled a vote Friday on the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board’s April ruling about the safety of the waste-storage containers.
If an F-16 jet fighter crashed into one of the nuclear casks, the board found, it would be highly unlikely the container would release worrisome amounts of radiation.
One board member, a nuclear engineer, dissented in the rare split vote of 2-1. Bennett said there is a rumor that the NRC may not take the vote because one of the five commissioners is “not quite ready.”
PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the companies are not expecting a final decision Friday, just a ruling on the containers.
“We’re just watching the situation like everybody else,” she said.
Utah Assistant Attorney General Denise Chancellor said the state is hopeful the commission will reject the container ruling.
She would not speculate on a final license decision.
“We’ll have to wait and see,” she said.
The state already has lost more than four dozen technical challenges to the project before the NRC.
“I never have a whole bunch of confidence” in the NRC decisions, said Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop. “If they rule in our favor, I’d be surprised and happy. If they do not rule in favor of the state, we still have some options. We plan on moving ahead on this issue.”
If the license is granted, it would take several years for PFS to ink deals with utilities to transport and store the waste and to build the facility, which is essentially a concrete parking lot where long rows of concrete and steel casks containing the waste would be stored.
Jason Groenewold, director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, which opposes PFS, said he expects that “the NRC will do whatever it takes to ensure the nuclear industry has a place to dump its waste.”
He said it was disappointing the NRC did not look at the worst-case scenario — the impact on the public if waste were released from a container- and order a thorough plan for emergency response.
“That is frightening, given what we’re seeing happen nationally right now,” he said.
“What we’re prepared to expect from the federal government is for them to put their heads in the sand and ignore the problem.”
Hatch said while he will be disappointed if the NRC rules in favor of PFS, it is “just the beginning of the battle. … Once the proposal leaves the NRC, it becomes vulnerable to lengthy examination by the courts, as well as administrative actions, which we will pursue relentlessly.”
By Robert Gehrke and Judy Fahys. Tribune reporter Thomas Burr contributed to this story.
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