Utah Nuclear Waste Site Advances

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has denied Utah’s final appeal of a federal licensing board’s approval of a private company’s plan to build a nuclear waste storage facility on an Indian reservation about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. intends to challenge the NRC decision in the courts. Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of eight commercial power companies, plans to build an aboveground facility to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley, Utah. By a 3-to-1 vote, NRC rejected Utah’s request for review of a February ruling by the Atomic Safety & Licensing Board. That board had rejected the state’s claim that the thousands of flights over Skull Valley each year by military aircraft from nearby Hill Air Force Base pose an unacceptable risk of an accidental crash into the facility and a catastrophic release of radiation. The proposed independent facility is designed to be temporary and would operate until the Department of Energy’s long-delayed permanent storage site for commercial waste opens at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.