Agency rejects latest appeal of Skull Valley nuke storage

Agency rejects latest appeal of Skull Valley nuke storage

By Robert Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - May 25

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Tuesday rejected Utah's latest appeal seeking to prevent Private Fuel Storage's plans to store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation.

The board's decision means PFS is inching closer to getting its license to build an interim spent fuel-rod storage site 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. PFS officials have said they could be operating by 2007.

The state still has other avenues of administrative appeal, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs has yet to sign off on the deal.

The state also is asking the Interior Department to throw out the Skull Valley Band's contract with PFS, and to deny PFS a right-of-way for a rail line to the reservation to move the waste. Another angle of attack is U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop's proposal in a Defense Department bill that would create a wilderness area to block the rail line.

Should PFS continue to prevail with the federal agencies, Utah can take the issue to a federal appeals court, said assistant Utah Attorney General Denise Chancellor.

Reaching that point "could be a month, it could be four months" she said.

Nevertheless, PFS views the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board's decision as a victory.

"We're very pleased that the process is moving forward," said Sue Martin, spokeswoman for PFS, the group of electric companies proposing the facility. "It has been moving forward. It's just been at a glacial pace."

The state had asked the licensing board to reverse a Feb. 24 ruling in favor of PFS, arguing that the board underestimated the risk and consequences of an F-16 fighter jet smashing into the waste dump while training at the nearby Air Force range.

"Given the result we reach today, nothing said herein alters the status quo, under which the commission has been, and continues to be, vested by NRC regulations with the authority to issue the requested license," the three-judge panel wrote.

In one part of the ruling, the judges were unanimous in rejecting the Utah attorneys' contention that the board should consider what harm might occur if one of the casks is damaged internally by an airplane crash.

However, the panel did suggest that the commission direct NRC staff to conduct "diminished shielding" studies to determine whether radiation might escape from a cask that is damaged but not breached and decide if those studies warrant further research.

In the second part of the ruling, Judge Peter Lam dissented from the other two judges, arguing against the board's determination that the risk of an F-16 crash was so remote -- less than one in 1 million per year -- that it should not prevent the licensing from proceeding.

Lam argued the determination was based on inadequate F-16 crash data.

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, expressed frustration, but no surprise. "I still think these are very legitimate concerns and I think it's very disappointing that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approached this the way it has."

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch expressed optimism. "PFS will never, in my opinion, overcome all the administrative, legal and economic hurdles," he said.

Meantime, Utah's delegation was alarmed by language in an Energy Department budget bill that seeks to create an interim nuclear storage site by next year to house the waste until a permanent repository in Yucca Mountain, Nev., is built.

A committee report accompanying the bill recommends interim storage in Nevada, if existing law can be changed, or at Energy Department sites in South Carolina, Washington, Idaho or Nevada. However, it also leaves open the option of a "non-federal" storage site.

"I am very nervous about the interim storage issue that is in this bill," said Matheson. "I'm nervous about its effect on validating or enhancing the viability of Private Fuel Storage."

Bishop asked the chairman of the subcommittee that drafted the bill for assurances the storage wouldn't take place at a site not run by the Energy Department.

"I do not see any reason the [Energy] secretary would consider a private site or a site on federal land or an Indian reservation for interim storage," Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, replied.

Tribune reporter Patty Henetz contributed to this story.

-----

To see more of The Salt Lake Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sltrib.com .

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.