February 27, 2006

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PFS Says it's Ready to Look for Customers
But Bennett downplays license awarded by NRC
By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News, UT
February 24, 2006

Private Fuel Storage says now that it has its operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it is ready to find customers.

But Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, says the company is running out of options "but they're not dead yet."

PFS, formed by a group of private electrical utilities, is hoping to construct a high-level nuclear waste storage facility on Goshute Indian land in Skull Valley, Tooele County. It would host up to 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods.

While technically "spent," the rods retain much of their original radioactivity.

Encased in protective casks, they would be shipped in by train and truck.

"With the license now in hand, PFS will begin the process of marketing the facility to nuclear power plant operators across the country that are in need of safe, secure storage for spent nuclear fuel rods," says a company press release, e-mailed to the Deseret Morning News on Thursday.

"This will generate the financing needed to construct the site."

This week, after years of hearings and controversy, the NRC awarded a license to the company.

"This is what we have been working on for nearly nine long years," John Parkyn, chairman of PFS, commented in the press release. "And it has been a very open licensing process, with the state of Utah and other intervenors heavily involved, along with significant information requests and demands from the NRC."

Of all the operations in Skull Valley, dating back to World War II, PFS has been the most thoroughly scrutinized, he said.

"We are sure the license is good news for our friends and partners, the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, on whose reservation we plan to build our facility."

The license is effective immediately. But PFS will not start construction until some other issues are resolved, he said. Actual building should take 18 to 24 months, according to Parkyn.

Those other issues include getting formal approval from the federal Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The company notes that the BLM has started a public comment period about granting a right of way for a rail line or allowing PFS the alternative of constructing a transfer station 26 miles north of the site on I-80. The station would move casks from rail cars and place them on "specially constructed heavy haul trucks" to drive to the site, says the release.

During a meeting with the Deseret Morning News editorial board on Wednesday, a reporter asked Bennett if the granting of the license meant the state is running out of options in its fight against Private Fuel Storage.

"I think PFS is running out of options, but they're not dead yet," he repled. "The granting of the license is the inertia of the previous push. . . . The process was just rolling down the hill, and at the bottom of the hill was the license."

A wilderness bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush makes it more difficult and more expensive for PFS, he said.

The bill's goal was to block the railroad, although the highway route may still be possible with the construction of the transfer station.

In addition, he said, utility executives "have been pulling out of PFS."

Constructing the facility may cost in the range of $1 billion, he said.

Just because the company has a license doesn't mean nuclear fuel rods will be coming to Utah, Bennett said. "They licensed a piece of sagebrush."

E-mail: bau@desnews.com