NRC Clears Way for Nuclear Waste Storage at Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah

By STEVE TETREAULT

STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday approved a private company’s plans to store nuclear waste on an Indian reservation in Utah, moving the proposal a step closer to reality and causing Nevadans to question how it might affect the repository planned for Yucca Mountain.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman immediately vowed to challenge the NRC’s decision in the courts, and state officials promised to fight the facility using all possible options. The state contends the project on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation would be too dangerous.

The strong reaction by Utah officials mirrored that of their neighbors in Nevada who are waging an aggressive fight against Department of Energy plans to build a nuclear waste complex at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Nevada elected leaders had closely watched the proposal by Private Fuel Storage, a group of utilities that wants to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel at the Skull Valley site about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

A handful of lawyers and consultants who helped Utah fight the nuclear waste initiative before the NRC also are on Nevada’s payroll, including Joe Egan, the state’s lead nuclear waste attorney.

Views were mixed as to what approval of the private nuclear waste site in Utah might portend for the Yucca Mountain Project. The Energy Department has yet to file an application for the NRC to consider.

“I don’t think there is much in parallel between PFS and Yucca Mountain,” said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

“A couple of issues are similar but the issues at Yucca are far more complex, the time frames are much longer and the geology is complicated,” Loux said.

At Yucca Mountain, nuclear waste arriving by truck or rail would be repackaged in an above-ground industrial complex and stored in an underground warren. To obtain a license, the Department of Energy must show it can meet standards to store 77,000 tons of waste safely for tens of thousands of years.

At Skull Valley, nuclear waste would be kept above ground in concrete and steel casks arrayed on concrete pads over 100 acres. Planners envision up to 4,000 casks, each containing 10 metric tons of spent fuel and licensed for storage up to 40 years.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the NRC’s approval was a bad omen for Nevadans who oppose nuclear waste storage within or near the state.

“This does not bode well for our fight,” she said. “The NRC decision totally disregards the wishes of the people of Utah, and the people of Nevada have also spoken they do not want nuclear waste. Whatever happened to states rights?”

Berkley said the ruling also signaled federal regulators’ acceptance of the concept that large volumes of nuclear waste can be transported safely over long distances, which Yucca Mountain critics and nuclear activists have disputed.

“Any decision that permits the storage of nuclear waste far from where it is produced is not a good idea for the state of Nevada,” Berkley said.

Sue Martin, a spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, said the Utah facility would be a temporary dump pending the delayed opening of a national repository at Yucca Mountain. Original plans were for a Nevada repository to begin accepting spent fuel in 1998.

“First and foremost, this certainly is not an alternative to Yucca Mountain,” Martin said. “If Yucca Mountain had been completed and opened on schedule this facility would not be needed at all.”

Wenonah Hauter, energy director of Public Citizen, a watchdog group, questioned the temporary nature of the Skull Valley site.

“It is dependent on the opening of Yucca Mountain, which continues to have significant problems and may never open,” Hauter said. Even if a Yucca repository were to open, waste could remain in Utah until schedules call for the specific utilities to shift their waste to Nevada.

“The two dumps are very much joined at the hip,” said Kevin Kamps, a waste specialist with the Nuclear Information Resource Service. “If the waste is moved all the way to Skull Valley, it is just a hop, skip and jump to Nevada.”

Kamps added utilities are expected to generate 105,000 metric tons of nuclear waste by 2046, enough to fill both Yucca Mountain and the Utah facility.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has proposed storing nuclear waste at the facilities where it is produced, an alternative to both the Private Fuel Storage site and Yucca Mountain.

On Friday, Reid said in a statement that he still believes that is the safest option.

“Thousands of tons of deadly nuclear material will pass homes, schools, businesses and churches in communities all across the country, and there is simply no way to safely do this,” Reid said.

It took eight years for the NRC to judge the Private Fuel Storage application. By law, the agency has four years to weigh Yucca Mountain, although experts have said they expect it could take much longer considering Nevada’s unremitting opposition.

Utah officials had argued the Skull Valley facility would be too close to a major population center and that the risk of a jet fighter from Hill Air Force Base crashing into the storage casks was too great.

But commissioners dismissed the argument, taking a two-pronged vote. First, they affirmed an earlier ruling that the waste containers wouldn’t release an unacceptable amount of radiation if a jet crashed into them. Then they voted 3-1 to authorize the NRC staff to issue a license to construct and operate the storage site.

The license will be ready after paperwork is completed, said NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner.

The dissenting vote was cast by Gregory Jaczko, a former energy adviser to Reid. In a five page opinion, Jaczko said more study was needed of the consequences should an F-16 fighter jet were to crash at the site.

Huntsman said in a statement that he was “deeply disappointed” in the NRC decision and would continue fighting the storage facility. In addition to a court appeal, another option for the state could be to designate a wilderness area to block construction of a rail spur to the site.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement that the plan was “dead on arrival.”

“This is a reckless, dangerous proposal, and I am pulling out all the stops to make sure this waste never makes a home in Utah,” Hatch said.

An impoverished tribe, the Goshutes had been looking for ways to make money and eventually teamed with Private Fuel Storage to propose the station.

The earliest the site is expected to be in operation is 2008.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.