Proposals could let nuclear wastes in Utah
No decisions made as senators weigh options
Approval of a federal interim storage facility for commercial nuclear fuel could move fuel rods to the Private Fuel Storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation — and a plan to recycle nuclear waste could make additional waste eligible to be stored at EnergySolutions' facilities.
Neither idea has been approved nor given money to proceed just yet, but Congress has options to make either proposal work.
At a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday, Paul Golan, the government's top Yucca Mountain official, said "the department continues to have an open mind on interim storage."
He said the department does not believe it has the authority under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 — the law that guides the government's plan to store nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas — to move ahead with interim storage, but if Congress allowed it, the department would be open to the discussion.
"Interim storage is less important than moving Yucca Mountain forward, but we understand that the commercial utilities are running in to a storage situation." Golan said.
PFS is looking for interested utilities to help construct the site now that it has its license approved. It also still needs approval from the Bureau of Land Management to build a transfer facility for waste brought in by truck. Utah's congressional delegation blocked a potential railroad on public land by including the starting point in a Wilderness Area designed to protect the Utah Test and Training Range.
The department is supposed to release a new schedule for Yucca in the summer, Golan said. That will give utilities an estimated opening date so they will know how much longer they will have to store waste at the nuclear power plants — or look at other options.
Golan would not name a specific location on where an interim site would go.
"That's a question that I think will involve a public dialogue," Golan said.
If Congress approved interim storage, PFS would not instantly become the interim storage site. But because it has a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to store commercial spent fuel, it could be an attractive location — even with the transportation obstacles it faces.
"As it is the only licensed facility in the nation, it creates the very real possibility that high-level waste could be sent to Utah," said Vanessa Pierce, program director at the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.
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