February 14, 2006

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Private Fuel Storage Gets a Draft License
But state vows to 'win this war' against nuclear waste storage site
By Suzanne Struglinski and Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News
February 14, 2006

WASHINGTON — Private Fuel Storage has a draft of its approved license in hand, and if there are no major changes, it could have a final license by the end of the month.

"We're disappointed," said Mike Lee, general counsel to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., "not entirely surprised, but disappointed."

He vowed the nuclear-waste storage facility would not be built. "We will win this war with PFS," he said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sidestepped what was earlier seen as a roadblock to licensure — the refusal of the Bureau of Land Management and the state historical preservation officer to sign a memorandum of understanding about historic properties. The NRC is issuing the license without those approvals.

This does not mean high-level nuclear waste will roll into Utah tomorrow, but it will allow the consortium that wants to store spent nuclear fuel rods on the land of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Tooele County to move ahead with the next phase of its plan.

"The NRC's making an awful decision, but we can't let it deter us from killing this project once and for all," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "This marks the first time the NRC intends to grant a license for a private, off-site storage site for spent nuclear fuel. That's a bad precedent, especially since the PFS is clearly not part of the government's nuclear waste program."

The NRC announced Monday that it finished the outstanding issue needed to complete the PFS license. It issued a draft of the license to PFS on Feb. 10 and gave the company seven days to correct any errors or omissions. The commission will issue the license once PFS completes the review, according to the announcement.

Private Fuel Storage will study the draft and will respond to the NRC with any comments or corrections, said Sue Martin, spokeswoman in Salt Lake City for the company.

"But we're extremely pleased that, after 8 1/2 years, we've gotten this far. I believe this is the first successful licensing of a nuclear facility in this country" in something like two decades.

After years of debate, the commission recommended last September that PFS be granted a license to store nuclear waste on the reservation, but the consortium could not officially receive the license until the commission, along with several other federal agencies, finished a review of how PFS would protect recognized historic places.

The state's historic preservation officer would not sign an agreement approved by several federal agencies on how PFS would protect eight historic properties on government land where a potential railroad would go to move waste to the site. Also, a federal moratorium on land management planning prohibited the BLM from signing it.

Late last year, the commission decided to simply include the agreements as part of the license so it could issue the license without the state or BLM signing off on it. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation told the commission in January it did not object to this so the commission was able to move ahead and issue the license.

"The NRC's decision to bypass the BLM opens this license to one of many legal challenges against the PFS proposal," Hatch said.

PFS still must get approval from the BLM, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Surface Transportation Board as well as prove it has adequate funding before construction could begin, according to the commission.

The BLM is currently taking comments from the public on whether granting a right of way for PFS to build a transportation hub on several acres of public land is in the country's best interest. Several of the company's eight utilities froze their financial support for the project last year, but PFS officials have said other companies can still sign on in the future.

"This is a formality that was expected, so not a lot has changed in this discussion. It still doesn't make any sense to have an above-ground nuclear storage facility next to a bombing range," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. "Everyone, including the NRC, should realize this. PFS may have got its license, but the unwise project is far from being viable."

President Bush signed Bishop's Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area into law in January, setting aside 100,000 acres, including the area PFS wanted to use to build a spur railroad to the plant.

Railroads are not allowed on wilderness areas. According to Martin, the wilderness designation isn't an impassible roadblock for PFS.

"It appears to block the railroad, but we had in our license application two proposals for getting the spent fuel from the Union Pacific main line down to the facility," she said. The company would have preferred to build the spur down the west side of Skull Valley because, she said, that option would have caused the least amount of interference with the public in the area. However, the second option was to build an "intermodal transfer facility up near I-80 at the top of Skull Valley Road."

There, rail cars would be unloaded of the fuel casks. The casks would be placed on trucks for the last 26 miles of roadway leading to the site. Martin did not think the funding provision would be a problem, either.

"This project is market-driven, so it won't be built until the market is ready," she said. As with a planned office building, it would not be built until enough customers are lined up, she said. Lee said the plan to store the highly radioactive fuel under the Air Force's "low-altitude flight path approaching a bombing range represents public policy at its worse. Lee said, "We're still a little bit baffled at the idea that the PFS plan has proceeded as far as it has. Nonetheless, we're going to stop this. This is not an 'if' issue for the governor, it's a 'when.' " That is, sooner or later, "we're going win this war with PFS."

"This is one of many battles we've got to fight with them and the NRC." The state is pursuing a multi-pronged attack that also includes the BLM and the BIA, as well as a court challenge and appeals to Congress, he said.

In addition, an NRC technical requirement concerning how closely the 20-ton lids must fit the casks will increase the cost and engineering complexity of the project, he said. He believes that alone will create a huge impediment for PFS. PFS is billed as a temporary storage site. But Lee said by the time the government's proposed permanent facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev., can be built, it will not have room for all of the country's spent waste — meaning the temporary site in Utah could become permanent.

There is a substantial risk "that if it comes here, it will never, ever leave," Lee said.

Jason Groenewold, director of the anti-nuclear Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, believes the wilderness designation should trump PFS.

"The real question is, will the nuclear industry ante up more money to stay in the game or will they fold?" Groenewold commented by e-mail. "Utahns must keep up the pressure and convince PFS to throw in the towel.”

E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com; bau@desnews.com