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02/24/2006:
"Nuclear Waste Headed To Reservation?"
It's a question that has dogged the nuclear industry since the 1970s: What can it do with spent fuel rods?The radioactive waste, eventually slated for permanent storage at a still-unfinished site in Nevada, has been piling up, mostly at the nation's 65 commercial nuclear power plants. Late Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gave its blessing to a solution: a storage site on a barren patch of a reservation in Utah that's home to some 25 native Americans, next to a proving ground for chemical and biological weapons, and near an Air Force bombing range.
The NRC licensed what would be the nation's largest, and only private, nuclear-waste storage facility. A consortium of utility companies would store for up to 40 years some 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel for an industry rapidly running out of space.
But the plan has powerful opponents, including Utah's entire congressional delegation and its governor, who have developed a multipronged attack plan to try to beat back this latest effort.
"Our position is this represents public policy at its absolute worst," says Mike Lee, general counsel to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. "What these people want to do is take spent nuclear fuel and put it above ground in casks in a valley that's located 40 miles immediately upwind from Utah's only population center. To make matters much worse, this aboveground, open-air facility lies immediately under the low-altitude flight path of 7,000 F-16s a year en route to a bombing range."
cbsnews.com
