How to Submit a Letter to the BLM
PFS has requested a 32-mile long, 200-foot wide permanent right-of-way to construct and operate a rail line. During the requested 50-year permit term, PFS would use public land to transport up to 200 casks of spent nuclear fuel each year on a rail line constructed of used bolted rail. The BLM terms this an “ultra-hazardous activity.”
While this right-of-way is located within the borders of Utah, this is not just a Utah issue. It would be on federally managed public lands, which belong to everyone. It also would allow nuclear power plants to rid themselves of the waste currently stored at their respective sites, which would make room for more waste. We should not become enablers for the dangerous addiction to nuclear power, and its deadly waste.
We encourage anyone to send comments to the BLM, but particularly if you live or work within 5 miles of one of the proposed route. The first two options refer to the routes to Yucca Mountain, but many of those would also be used for Skull Valley
View a map of the proposed routes in your state.
Determine how close you are to a proposed route.
View a map of waste routing from the original PFS partners to Skull Valley
Here is a link to the actual proposals for which PFS needs a right of way.
The BLM wants to see comments on this proposal that address 4 points, and we have provided talking points that you may use in composing your letter.
1. Is the project in the public interest?
- The PFS plan is vehemently opposed by the entire Utah Congressional delegation, Governor Jon Huntsman, former Governor Michael Leavitt, members of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes and an overwhelming majority of Utahns.
- Transporting waste across the country creates "mobile Chernobyls," a reference to the 1986 nuclear power plant explosion in the Ukraine, former Soviet Union.
- Despite the National Academy of Sciences report concluding that nuclear waste transport was generally safe, no analysis was made of the threat of terrorism.
- Locating the project so close to bombing ranges, and beneath military aircraft airspace, is a threat to public health and safety.
- The Environmental Working Group has assessed the risks to Salt Lake City posed by an accident of even moderate severity. The Cesium that would be released by a broken seal could kill 350 people in the first year. Many more would suffer the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of Cesium that were not removed during cleanup.
- Placing this facility next to I-80, a major east-west traffic corridor creates a potential terrorist target.
- Transporting and storing the waste "temporarily" removes an important incentive from the waste producers for finding permanent solutions to the waste
2. Is PFS technically and financially capable of successfully pursuing the project?
- Six of the eight original partners have dropped their financial support.
- PFS is a shell company with no assets of its own.
- There is no indication that PFS has been able to secure even one contract for waste storage at Skull Valley.
- There are technical issues with the cask design which have not been resolved
- There are safety issues with the cask design noted by Dr. Oscar Shirani, including faulty welding and manufacturing defects that could be aggravated by heat related stress.
- PFS has no plan or funding for training emergency responders along proposed routes.
3. Is the project consistent with existing public land law?
- The Bureau of Indian Affairs has not yet approved the project. The legitimacy of the tribal chairman who signed the agreement is in dispute, with lawsuits pending.
- The Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area was created through public law, and hence issuing the right of way through this area would violate public law. Here is a map of the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area, showing how it crosses the proposed right-of-way.
- The Pony Express Resource Management Plan documents public land management and use. None of the uses described in this plan allow for the construction and operation of a storage and transfer facility for nuclear waste at the junction of I-80 and Skull Valley Road. The plan also disallows hazardous waste treatment, storage or disposal.
4. Is the project consistent with BLM’s management of public lands?
Here is a link to Orrin Hatch’s site, with his position against the right-of-way
Here is a link to the state’s position against the right-of-way
Citizens have between now and May 8, 2006 to send their comments to:
Pam Shuller
Bureau of Land Management
Salt Lake Field Office
2370 South 2300 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84119
(801) 977-4300
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