Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
September 13, 2005
Yucca waste talks likely facing delay
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A crowded congressional calendar may slow down talks on a government plan to move nuclear waste somewhere before Yucca Mountain would open, but House Appropriation Committee aides are happy that the discussion is expected to eventually take place.
Finding money for Hurricane Katrina aid and the confirmation process for two Supreme Court nominees will overshadow nuclear waste talks -- and rightly so -- aides said at a National Academy of Sciences meeting Monday, but they are still willing to debate the issue as spending bills compete for completion before the end of the year.
The House approved allocating $10 million for the Energy Department to begin moving nuclear waste to a government site that has yet to be determined. Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who leads the House Appropriation Energy and Water Subcommittee, earmarked the money because the plan to put 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is not moving forward right now.
The Senate version of the bill, passed earlier this year, did not include that additional money.
Hobson emphasized the money is not designed to replace Yucca or move away from the process at all; it is just a way to get waste out of the hands of utilities.
The government was supposed to take waste from nuclear power plants by 1998, but it missed the deadline. Nuclear power users are still paying toward a federal repository that does not exist yet as well as costs for storing waste on-site.
Hobson's subcommittee clerk, Kevin Cook told the Academy's Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board Monday that there are other things dominating the schedule now, as they probably should be. It is not clear when meetings would start between House and Senate negotiators to work out differences between the two versions of the bill. Cook said the Senate's bill is $1.5 billion higher than the House already.
"We intended to start a dialogue," Cook said. "We have been surprised by a lack of administration response." Although he said the administration may still submit a plan that would have to be introduced as a bill in Congress. He did not know when or if one would go to the Hill.
"We have obviously succeeded in stirring the waters," said Dixon Butler, of the subcommittee's Democratic staff. "We hope the administration will come through with something that could trigger legislation."
The energy and water spending bill, at the earliest, would come up in October, said Tessa Hafen, spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid is the top Democrat on the Senate subcommittee that writes the bill. Hafen said it is not likely to come up this month at all.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval of the proposed Private Fuel Storage site in Utah may help calm transportation fears, Cook said.
"It helps prove the point the centralized interim storage makes more sense," Cook said. "Once you start moving it, it blows the whole 'mobile Chernobyl' argument out of the water."
Nevada officials, who strongly oppose Yucca Mountain, do not want to see waste moved anywhere but would rather the government pay to store waste on site a nuclear power plants.
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
September 13, 2005
NRC advisory panel to meet in LV
Las Vegas Sun
Recent developments related to a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain will be discussed when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste meets in Las Vegas.
The committee has scheduled meetings from 9:45 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. on Sept. 21 and from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 22.
The briefings will include the NRC's plans for reviewing a license application to build a repository, if it is submitted by the Energy Department. This meeting runs from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 22.
Experts on climate evolution are also expected to speak to the committee.
The public is invited to attend any of the meetings. The committee has set aside from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sept. 22 for addressing public concerns.
Those attending the meetings will be subject to a security screening before entering the meeting at the Pacific Enterprise Plaza Building One, 3250 Pepper Lane, between Sunset Road and Patrick Lane east of Pecos Road.
Oral or written comments may be presented by the public. Those wishing to make oral statements should contact Sharon Steele, at (301) 415-8065.
Videoconferencing may be available. Those interested in this service should contact Theron Brown at (301) 415-8066.
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
September 13, 2005
EPA official: Yucca radiation standard most stringent in nation
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - An Environmental Protection Agency official defended proposed new radiation safety standards for a planned federal nuclear waste repository in Nevada, calling them the most stringent in the nation.
"We ensure that Yucca Mountain is as safe as any other disposal system that could be developed," said Elizabeth Cotsworth, director of the EPA Office of Radiation and Indoor Air.
Cotsworth delivered a presentation Monday to the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board in Washington, D.C. The board is a branch of the National Academies of Sciences, which monitors the Yucca Mountain project.
"We are proposing to protect public health up to a million years," Cotsworth said. "Clearly no other environmental regulation in the U.S. looking at any risk has ever attempted to regulate for such an extended period of time."
The EPA is taking public comment on proposed safety rules it unveiled in August. The Energy Department would need to show it could meet the standards to obtain a license to open the repository.
The department plans to ship and entomb 77,000 tons of the nation's most highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from 39 states at the Yucca site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Cotsworth said the EPA might extend a public comment period beyond Oct. 21, and no schedule has been set for finalizing the regulation.
Public hearings are scheduled Oct. 3 in Amargosa Valley, the community closest to the Yucca repository site, and Oct. 4-5 in Las Vegas. Another hearing is set Oct. 11 in Washington.
The EPA proposed new Yucca Mountain radiation rules last month, after a federal appeals court in July 2004 invalidated parts of a previous regulation.
Nevada opposes the repository plan, and state elected leaders and Yucca Mountain critics dispute the EPA's characterization of the new radiation rule. They say it was structured to ease the Energy Department's ability to open the repository, and state Attorney General Brian Sandoval has said the state will sue the EPA unless the proposed regulation is changed.
The new two-part EPA proposal calls for the Energy Department to show that a person living about 11 miles away from the site would be exposed to no more than 15 millirem of radiation a year during the first 10,000 years of repository operations.
EPA officials said a routine chest X-ray emits 10 millirem and that a mammogram emits 30 millirem.
After 10,000 years, EPA wants the repository exposure limit at 350 millirem.
Cotsworth said that level was tied to what Colorado residents get in background radiation from soil, rocks, the sun and other natural sources.
"For very long times, total radiation exposures to (individuals) will be no higher than natural levels people live with routinely in other parts of the country," she told the science panel.
On the Net:
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
September 13, 2005
Editorial: On a dangerous path
Las Vegas Sun
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted a group of electric utilities a license to build a temporary nuclear waste dump on a tribal reservation in Utah. A spokeswoman for the electric utilities, Sue Martin of Private Fuel Storage, said they don't view it as an alternative to Nevada's Yucca Mountain, where the federal government has encountered regulatory and legal setbacks in its plans to build a permanent nuclear waste dump. Nonetheless, Martin noted that a temporary, above-ground repository in Utah, which could hold 44,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste, could be a "very helpful kind of staging area" for shipping nuclear waste to Nevada in light of its proximity.
Utah state officials plan to appeal the decision in the courts, so it could be years away from becoming a reality -- if ever. Nonetheless, Nevadans should be concerned by the decision to go forward with the repository in Utah, especially since the agency that granted the license -- the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- is the same one that will decide Yucca Mountain's fate. But this isn't an issue affecting only residents of Utah and Nevada. Indeed, all Americans, particularly the tens of millions who live along the routes that the waste will be shipped, will be placed in danger by the needless shipping of nuclear waste.
Putting man's deadliest waste on our roads -- where it's vulnerable to spills from accidents or terrorist acts -- is insane. Keeping the waste safely in dry-cask storage at the power plants where the nuclear waste is generated makes the most sense. But the federal government, when it comes to disposing of nuclear waste, has shown an alarming lack of common sense by going forward with plans that not only ignore the dangers of burying the waste, as is the case with Yucca Mountain, but also the threats posed by shipping it thousands of miles across the nation. Our government's continuing failure to protect us from the unnecessary dangers of shipping nuclear waste is courting a catastrophe -- it's a question of when, not if, it will happen.
---------------------------
Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 13, 2005
Yucca Mountain: EPA official defends rule
Proposal for new radiation standard for nuclear waste repository under study
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- An Environmental Protection Agency official Monday defended proposed new radiation safety standards for Yucca Mountain and said they amounted to the most stringent nuclear waste protections in the nation.
"We ensure that Yucca Mountain is as safe as any other disposal system that could be developed for high-level waste" and mixed nuclear waste, said Elizabeth Cotsworth, EPA director of the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air.
Cotsworth delivered a presentation to the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, a branch of the National Academies of Sciences that monitors the Yucca project.
The EPA is studying public comments on the proposed safety rules unveiled in August. The Department of Energy would need to show it could meet the standards to obtain a license to bury highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel at the Nevada site.
Cotsworth said the EPA might extend the public comment period beyond Oct. 21. She said no schedule has been set for finalizing the regulation, which would be a step forward for the repository program.
Public hearings are scheduled for Oct. 3 in Amargosa Valley, Oct. 4-5 in Las Vegas and Oct. 11 in Washington, D.C.
Nevada elected leaders and other Yucca Mountain critics dispute the EPA's characterization of the radiation standard. They charge it was structured to ensure that the Department of Energy could comply with it and speed the opening of a repository.
Attorney General Brian Sandoval has said the state will sue the EPA unless the proposed regulation is changed.
The radiation standard is a benchmark used to ensure that protections are designed into the nuclear waste tunnels DOE proposes to build 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The EPA proposed new Yucca Mountain radiation rules after a federal appeals court in July 2004 invalidated parts of the previous regulation.
The new EPA proposal contains two parts.
For the first 10,000 years of repository operations, the Energy Department would need to show that a person living about 11 miles away would be exposed to no more than 15 millirem of radiation annually from Yucca Mountain.
EPA officials said that a routine chest X-ray emits 10 millirem and that a mammogram emits 30 millirem.
For the period beyond 10,000 years, when scientists are more uncertain of climate, geology and social changes that might occur, EPA has proposed to set the repository exposure limit at 350 millirem.
Cotsworth said that level was tied to what Colorado residents receive in background radiation from soil, rocks, the sun and other natural sources.
"For very long times, total radiation exposures to (individuals) will be no higher than natural levels people live with routinely in other parts of the country," Cotsworth told the science panel.
The EPA proposal would require the Energy Department to perform more analyses on how climate changes, earthquakes, volcanic activity and corrosion of nuclear waste canister would affect the release of radiation into the environment over a million-year time frame.
"We are proposing to protect public health up to a million years," Cotsworth said. "Clearly no other environmental regulation in the U.S. looking at any risk has ever attempted to regulate for such an extended period of time."
---------------------------
Reno Gazette-Journal
September 13, 2005
Your Turn: Energy policy holds bleak long-term promise
John Scire
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 is better than no energy policy at all. It keeps the incentives for alternative energy sources such as wind farms, photovoltaics, biodiesel, ethanol and nuclear power. It provides funds for research into new energy technologies. It encourages accelerated exploration and production from domestic sources of oil and gas and it encourages building new refineries and increasing capacity at old refineries.
It gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency the power it needs to ensure the power grid is reliable, to establish LNG (liquefied natural gas) ports and to expedite the construction of transmission lines.
What´s wrong with it? It does not go far enough in two areas, energy efficiency and the environment. It should have raised the minimum miles-per-gallon standards for autos and extended them to all vehicles except very large trucks. It should have mandated energy-efficient buildings, machines and appliances. It should have mandated non-oil/non-coal energy production for a significant proportion of our electrical generating capacity. Hurricane Katrina has shown us that we are too dependent on the natural gas and oil from the Gulf of Mexico. History has shown that we are too dependent on oil from the Middle East.
For the short term, we must exploit all of our domestic sources of oil, coal and gas until we can transition to nuclear, photovoltaic, wind power, fuel cells, electrical cars and alternative fuels. But if we are to achieve true energy security and independence, if we are to get off the addiction to Middle Eastern oil, then we have to do a lot more today. At the very least, we should accelerate the building of new nuclear, wind, geothermal and solar power plants, and upgrade the old ones.
While some reactionaries may scream about the dangers of nuclear power, they cannot both claim there is global warming and not support nuclear power. They cannot talk about energy independence, claim the war in Iraq is about oil, decry the pollution effects of coal-fired power plants and not support nuclear, geothermal and solar power.
Electricity produced from nuclear power can replace, coal, oil and natural gas for both motive and electrical power. Nuclear power can produce the hydrogen for the fuel cell cars, the electricity for the electric and hybrid cars while replacing natural gas and oil from the Gulf and the Mideast.
But nuclear power goes nowhere if we cannot first reduce the waste problem via reprocessing and storage.
The U.S. should do what France, England, Japan and Russia do and reprocess our nuclear wastes so as to extract the enriched uranium and plutonium. This can then be run back through the nuclear power plants to produce more power.
The 10 to 15 percent left after reprocessing should be placed in retrievable storage to await scientific developments to neutralize it or dispose of it properly. Yucca could be the site for both the reprocessing and the retrievable storage of the unusable waste.
If we continue to do so little, we will pay higher and higher gas prices until we bankrupt our economy.
The energy crisis is not coming in 20 years. It is here now.
John Scire teaches energy policy at the University of Nevada, Reno.
---------------------------
New American
September 13, 2005
Shoshone Indians Ask for UN Intervention
by William Norman Grigg
In an appeal to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Western Shoshone tribe has asked the world body to intervene in a land ownership dispute with the federal government.
The Shoshone petition “challenges the U.S. government´s assertion of federal ownership of nearly 90 percent of Western Shoshone lands,’ reported Indian Country Today on August 19. The dispute involves roughly 60 million acres stretching across Nevada, Idaho, Utah, and California. “The lands include the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste facility and lands targeted for expanded gold extraction,’ notes the report.
“Our traditional laws tell us we were placed here as caretakers of the land,’ stated Western Shoshone spokesman Joe Kennedy. “As part of the Western Shoshone Nation, we will not stand idly by and allow the U.S. federal government to cement its hold on our ancestral land base.’
Also among the grievances listed by the tribe was the fact that “domestic law allowed the U.S. government to unilaterally abrogate Indian treaties, [a question] to which the United States never provided an answer.’
Some — not all — of the Western Shoshones´ grievances have merit. Unconstitutional federal control over lands in the western U.S. vexes Americans of all backgrounds, as does Washington´s habit of redefining the law and constitutional provisions to suit its whims. If genuine federal accountability and reform are the desired outcome of the petition — as opposed to building precedents for global governance — turning the matter over to the UN is exactly the worst way to proceed.
---------------------------
Billings Gazette
September 13, 2005
Utah pledges fight against nuclear dump near Salt Lake City
By Paul Foy
Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah is planning its challenge to a federal ruling that would allow shipments of nuclear waste to an impoverished American Indian reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, with Gov. Jon Huntsman pledging Tuesday he would "stand in the middle of the railroad track" if necessary to stop the shipments.
In his biggest challenge since taking office in January, Huntsman made the vow as state lawyers prepared to ask a federal appeals court to overturn the decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Utah has 60 days to appeal Friday's decision and is assessing whether it will fare better at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver or the District of Columbia Circuit, said Denise Chancellor, an assistant state attorney general.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is equally furious over the use of the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation as a ground-level storage depot for spent nuclear fuel rods. He called it dangerous and reckless, with F-16 fighter jets from Hill Air Force Base making 7,000 runs yearly over the reservation to the Utah Test and Training Range.
Utah made its strongest argument over the chance one of those jets could crash into a canister of highly radioactive fuel, or that terrorists could make a target of the concrete pad.
The NRC rejected the arguments Friday after eight years of hearings and deliberations by its Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which split 2-1 on the safety questions. The dissenting judge, a nuclear engineer, questioned assumptions used to assess the likelihood of a jet crash.
The NRC then voted 3-1 to approve the license for Utah's version of Yucca Mountain, the troubled federal project to build a nuclear-waste repository in Nevada. The dissent was made by Commissioner Gregory Jaczko, who questioned the lack of a definitive analysis of the spread of radiation from a breached container.
The split on both boards opens a legal argument for Utah, which can argue in court that the NRC didn't satisfy its own safety standards for a nuclear-waste repository.
"Some deference will be given to NRC but they have to comply with their own regulations, and I think we can demonstrate that while there have been a lot of hearings and computer modeling, there hasn't been a thorough analysis of the radiation consequences if and when a storage cask gets hit by an F-16 or a bomb," Chancellor said. "They basically looked at this without any standards whatsoever."
Hatch has insisted the Skull Valley proposal was "dead on arrival." The state's congressional delegation fired off a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton asking her to block construction of a rail spur across federal land to the reservation.
Utah's leaders also plan to lobby the Bureau of Indian Affairs to withhold its approval for a lucrative lease that Private Fuel Storage offered the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians.
Asked Tuesday how the state would respond to an earthquake or other disaster hitting Skull Valley, Huntsman flatly said, "They won't be successful." He was referring to Private Fuel Storage, the consortium of nuclear-powered utilities looking for a temporary way station for nuclear waste.
If it comes to it, Huntsman said he would personally block rail shipments at Utah's border.
"But meantime, we have an executive-branch strategy, we have a legislative strategy, we have a legal strategy," Huntsman told radio station KCPW on Tuesday. "All of them we're deploying to the best of our ability. I discussed this with everyone from the president right on down, and I will continue to harass and harangue until we get some action on it."
The NRC decision drew a rare rebuke from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which issued a statement last week complaining the project lacked scrutiny.
"The first thing that came to my mind is: 'What has the past eight years been about, if it hasn't been about intense scrutiny?"' Private Fuel Storage spokeswoman Sue Martin told The Salt Lake Tribune.
---------------------------
Deseret News
September 13, 2005
Utah to file appeal of nuclear repository ruling
Critics hail statement of opposition by LDS Church
By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News
Utah will file a federal appeal of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's granting a license to build a high-level nuclear repository in Tooele County.
That was the word Monday from Mike Lee, general counsel to Gov. Jon M. Huntsman. Last week, the NRC granted a license allowing construction of the facility by Private Fuel Storage. PFS intends to build it on land owned by the Goshute Indians in Skull Valley and store casks of radioactive nuclear power plant fuel rods.
Altogether, 40,000 tons of the dangerous material would be shipped to the site and stored there for up to 40 years.
Over the weekend, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said it opposed the NRC decision, and that has energized some of the plant's critics.
"I was really pleased to see the church's statement," Lee said. "It states something that I certainly agree with, that the governor certainly agrees with ...
"This is indicative of how strongly people feel about this thing."
Two lines of appeal are open to the state in federal court: through the U.S. 10th Circuit of Appeals, based in Denver, or the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. The action would not be a new lawsuit but an appeal to a decision by a federal administrative body.
"We will file a petition for review on that sometime fairly soon in one of those two courts," he said. But which one, he was not prepared to say. Lee would only say the choice has been the subject of a lot of discussion.
"We'll take it to one of those two courts and raise arguments that we think highlight the reasons why this is a bad plan and why the NRC's decisions should be reversed by the court."
He called the NRC ruling flawed, dangerous and irresponsible. "It's bad public policy," Lee said.
The commission did not take sufficient notice of serious safety considerations, such as the fact that 7,000 F-16 flights — between Hill Air Force Base and the Utah Test and Training Range — take place every year over Skull Valley, he said.
"This is not the end of the road," Lee vowed. "The NRC decision far from signals the imminent arrival of spent nuclear fuel in the state of Utah." At the earliest, that would happen years from now. Meanwhile, the state will continue to fight the license in other forums, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management, both of which need to give approval before the plant is built.
"This is not the end or even the beginning of the end, but only the end of the beginning."
Lee also said the state also is pursuing legislation in Congress to make it difficult or impossible for PFS to carry out its plans.
Jason Groenewold, director of the Health Environment Alliance of Utah, met with the governor on the issue Monday. He said Huntsman is "clearly concerned about the license that was issued."
Huntsman was not surprised by the NRC action, he added, "but very much committed to fighting it."
He believes Huntsman feels it is an important part of his work as governor to oppose the project, "and that a key strategy is to build alliances with other Western states, starting with Nevada, so we work together to keep nuclear wastes from being dumped here."
Groenewold welcomed the church statement.
"We need everyone and every resource available to fight this," he said, "and the church has tremendous credibility, not only within the state but throughout the country."
The church concern "helps leverage opposition in other key areas," he said.
Steve Erickson, director of the watchdog group Citizens Education Project, also welcomed the church statement. He said he hopes it "might spur our senators, especially, to reassess their position" concerning the permanent repository proposed for Yucca Mountain, Nev.
"We need to stick with Nevada in this fight," he said. Utah should join with Nevadans, such as Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to find a way to protect "the entire Great Basin and the nation," said Erickson.
A method of storing the spent fuel rods in dry casks at the nuclear power plants that used them has been working for the industry, he said. "It will continue working for the industry."
Erickson warned that the Yucca Mountain project seems to be in serious trouble. If it were to collapse, that could leave PFS as the only site for such a national storage facility.
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
---------------------------
Salt Lake Tribune
September 13, 2005
Guv calls feds out on waste
Huntsman won't let nuclear dump go in without a fight
By Rebecca Walsh and Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune
With the prospect of highly radioactive waste crossing Utah's borders, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. talked tough Monday.
Huntsman plans to push federal legislation, pester President Bush and his Cabinet and appeal to federal court over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's license for a nuclear storage site on an Indian reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
"This is the most reckless thing I have ever heard our [federal] government wanting to do in this state," Huntsman said in an interview. "If I have to stand in front of the train coming across the border, I'm prepared to do that."
Two previous governors opposed a consortium of eight nuclear power companies' plan to store up to 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Band
of Goshutes reservation in Tooele County. And after eight years of wrangling - in Congress and before the commission - Huntsman faces the prospect of trying to finish the fight.
The governor did not detail many specifics of his plan. He has asked Interior Secretary Gale Norton to "unilaterally cancel the lease." He supports U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's legislation requiring on-site storage of the waste at the nuclear power plants that produce it. He has raised the possible threat of a terrorist attack on the site with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. And he believes a court appeal will "ensure that nothing happens imminently."
Huntsman has determined trainloads of used nuclear fuel rods will not enter the state on his watch.
"There isn't [another] issue as important as this one as far as I'm concerned," Huntsman said. "We need something that closes this off other than just by legal means. We are talking about a public-policy fix. But it is premature to say what that magic bullet could be."
Right now, the most public sign of the state's fight likely will be in court - with a challenge to the NRC's licensing decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver or Washington.
Dianne Nielson, director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said the state is looking forward to pressing its case in federal court, which is the next step for challenging any final NRC decision.
"We think it will be a less biased forum," Nielson said. "We're prepared and expected to be in court."
In addition to securing funding for the legal fight from the Legislature, the state is continuing its work with the public-private Nuclear Opposition (NO!) Coalition.
"They have not met for a long time, but they are still a force," she said.
Private Fuel Storage spokeswoman Sue Martin said it was no surprise the state would appeal the license. Martin said PFS was surprised by the wording in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' statement last week that nuclear waste storage "requires thorough scrutiny."
"The first thing that came to my mind is: 'What has the past eight years been about, if it hasn't been about intense scrutiny?' " she said.
"The state of Utah has represented its citizens well by raising all of the tough questions that have been the topic of many hours of hearings before the [NRC]. All of those questions have been addressed to the satisfaction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
But the governor figures the public opposition of LDS Church leaders can't hurt the state's case. Still, he has no plans to involve the church officially in the battle.
"Just the fact that they have taken a position on it will resonate with many both in state and out," Huntsman said.
Jason Groenewold, director of the Health Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL), met with the governor to talk strategy Monday.
He said Huntsman stressed the importance of building alliances with the state of Nevada and others.
Keeping high-level nuclear waste out of Utah appears to be one of the governor's top priorities, Groenewold said.
"He's not taking it lightly," he added. "Clearly he wants to fight this thing with everything he's got."
Tribune reporter Matt Canham contributed to this report.
---------------------------
WisBusiness
September 13, 2005
WisBusiness: Utah Could Be Resting Place for Wisconsin Nuclear Waste
By Gregg Hoffmann
La CROSSE — About 40 tons of spent fuel from the Dairyland Power Cooperative nuclear reactor in Genoa could end up in Utah.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's voted last Friday to approve a private company's plan to build a nuclear waste storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah.
Private Fuel Storage, a group of utilities that includes La Crosse-based Dairyland, wants to store about 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel at the site 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. That includes about 40 tons of spent fuel from Genoa.
Dairyland recently announced plans to tear down its nuclear reactor in Genoa and ship it to South Carolina by 2007, but some concerns about the spent fuel rods remain.
The reactor will be filled with concrete this year. Removal of the reactor vessel is scheduled for 2006. The vessel will be shipped to a low-level nuclear storage facility in South Carolina in 2007.
The process clears the way to remove high-level radioactive spent fuel rods, plant manager Roger Christians said at a public information meeting in August at De Soto High School. Christians said the rods might remain on site in dry storage casks for several years until the federal government can open its own storage facility.
Of biggest concern has been the spent fuel. Until the spent fuel is removed, Dairyland cannot fully decommission the Genoa facility, which it shut down in 1987.
Dairyland officials say maintaining the closed facility until the spent fuel can be moved costs the coop more than $5.5 million annually.
The earliest the Utah facility is expected to be operational is 2008, said John Parkyn, chairman and CEO of Private Fuel Storage as well as Dairyland's manager of nuclear and special projects. It's too soon to predict whether Dairyland's spent nuclear fuel will be shipped there in 2008, he said.
Opposition to the Utah facility is strong. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman vowed last week to challenge the NRC decision in the courts. Other Utah officials promised to fight the facility using all possible options. The state contends the project would be too dangerous.
Utah officials had argued the 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.
Private Fuel Storage's facility would be a temporary dump pending the opening of a national nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the senate minority leader, has proposed storing nuclear waste at the facilities where it is produced — an alternative to both the Private Fuel Storage site and Yucca Mountain.
An impoverished tribe, the Goshutes had been looking for ways to make money and eventually teamed with Private Fuel Storage to propose the station.
Under their plan, the waste would be kept above ground in 4,000 steel casks, which can hold up to 10 tons of spent fuel each. The casks would be shielded in an overpack of two steel shells encasing a wall of concrete more than 2 feet thick.
The federal government built Dairyland's nuclear plant, known as the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor, in 1967. Dairyland shut down the reactor in 1987, and has been working to decommission it.
Christians said Dairyland has hired Duratek Inc. to help remove the 200-ton reactor pressure vessel, which will be encased in concrete and steel and shipped by train to South Carolina. The entire shipment will weigh 400 tons, and require a special 20-axle rail car.
The train will go south from Genoa to the Quad Cities and then to Barnwell, S.C., officials said. Removing the low-level waste to South Carolina will cost Dairyland an estimated $18.5 million.
Dairyland officials also announced they will spend $50 million over the next two years on new pollution control equipment at the adjacent coal-fired electric plant.
---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
---------------------------