PFS chief says foes can't stop nuclear waste

Utah updates challenge; $100M deal for Goshutes?

By Suzanne Struglinski and Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News
Published: Thursday, March 9, 2006 9:14 a.m. MST
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WASHINGTON — A Nuclear Regulatory Commission license in hand, Private Fuel Storage's chairman said Wednesday that the consortium of utilities is moving forward with its plans for a high-level nuclear waste disposal site in Utah's Skull Valley — and he doesn't think opponents can stop it.

"Yes, there is hope for our future," John Parkyn said, holding up the license at an NRC conference in Maryland, drawing applause from the crowd.

In other developments:

• The state of Utah this week filed an updated challenge to the PFS proposal in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. It challenges the NRC's license, issued to PFS last month.

• And Time magazine is reporting that PFS would pay the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians up to $100 million over 40 years for the right to operate its proposed repository on the band's reservation.

However, neither Skull Valley Band chairman Leon Bear nor PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin would confirm the figure to the Deseret Morning News.

In Maryland, Parkyn told the NRC conference he is seeking additional utilities with nuclear plants interested in moving waste to the PFS site, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. And he downplayed any chances Utah's congressional delegation, governor and other opponents have at stopping PFS's plans.

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That includes the recent creation of the Cedar Mountains Wilderness Area, approved by President Bush in January. The wilderness area gives federal protection to land adjoining the Utah Test and Training Range and includes PFS's preferred route for a rail line that would be built to move nuclear waste through Skull Valley to the storage site.

The congressional delegation had earlier pointed out that the wilderness designation did not stop the project outright but at least could remove a transportation option. PFS could still use a trucking option, although it still needs permission to use public land to build a transfer facility to truck the waste.

But Parkyn maintains that the wilderness area does not rule out using another rail route.

"That doesn't mean you can't put a railroad there, whether Sen. (Orrin) Hatch understands that or not. It certainly would make getting that land lease for the purpose harder.

"We will get the fuel to the site because it's a legal commodity, and we now have a license to receive it," Parkyn said.

Parkyn said the Cedar Mountain reserve is not a real wilderness either, arguing that the wilderness is in the mountains and that the delegation just "drew a bubble" around the mountains to block the nuclear waste — an argument he says could matter later down the line.

Parkyn believes other utilities will join the PFS consortium to save money and that ultimately the federal government will come on board as well.

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