Nuclear waste battle: a historic turn
After a long process, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommended in September that PFS be granted a license to store nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians' land in Tooele County. But it still has not been formally approved.
The commission, along with several other federal agencies, had to finish a review of how PFS would protect recognized historic places before it could actually issue the license.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation worked with the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Surface Transportation Board, the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, the Utah State Historic Preservation Officer and Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C., among other groups, to identify how moving and storing nuclear waste in Utah would affect historical places and what PFS would do to solve any problems.
The proposed PFS site itself has no historic properties, according to the council. But it did find eight within the Bureau of Land Management property where the company plans to build a railroad to move waste through Utah to the site:
• A portion of the road bed and paved surface of historic U.S. 40 (1920s-1966);
• Several segments of the New Victory Highway, later designated as U.S. 40 (1925-1940);
• A portion of the Old Victory Highway (1916-1925);
• Two segments of a telegraph line from the late 1800s, early 1900s (posts and cross beams);
• The Western Pacific Railroad (1907-present), a modern rail bed and tracks, and a railroad bridge/road underpass;
• Deep Creek Road (mid-1800s to early 1900s);
• A road to Sulphur Spring/Eight-Mile Spring (mid-1800s to early 1900s).
In 2001, the groups — except for the Utah State Historic Preservation Officer — created an agreement outlining how PFS would protect historic places, but the BLM and Utah State Historic Preservation Officer would not sign it. The agreement circulated again in May 2005, but the Utah State Historic Preservation Officer and BLM still would not sign it.
The BLM said under current law it cannot change any land use plans and wanted to wait until it was closer to a decision on whether to grant PFS a right-of-way to build a rail line to Skull Valley.
John Harja, the state historic preservation officer responsible for PFS, said the state did not refuse to sign anything. He just thinks it is "premature" to make a decision on how to protect historic places when a right-of-way has not even been issued yet.
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