So says the state of Utah in its appeal of a February ruling by the Atomic Safety Licencing Board, a panel of NRC judges who gave preliminary approval for a utility consortium's license to build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

But the consortium, Private Fuel Storage, says the commission shouldn't delay licensing the PFS facility because it routinely approves similar dry-cask storage proposals for nuclear reactors.

The state's arguments, filed Monday with the NRC, were the latest salvos in its nearly eight-year battle with PFS. The state contends that because the PFS license application hasn't been updated since November 2001, it doesn't include consideration of such issues as seismic safety, transportation difficulties or security.

"The state of the record is so outdated it's like we've got a different facility from what was [originally] proposed," said Utah Assistant Attorney General Denise Chancellor.

PFS, however, said delaying the license "would cause unwarranted harm to PFS, owners of nuclear power plants who need to store spent fuel, the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes and Tooele County."

PFS also argued that receiving its license immediately would not pose risk to public health and safety of the environment, nor would it affect any future appeals of the license.

NRC Chairman Nils A. Diaz seemingly bolstered that argument Monday when he told the National Press Club that the casks in which the spent fuel would be stored were well-protected and even if they were breached in some type of an attack, radiation leakage would be confined to a two-mile radius.

For the PFS proposal, that radius would include the tiny Goshute village, the home of about 25 tribal members, some of them children.

The $3.1 billion interim facility in Skull Valley was designed to complement the permanent spent nuclear fuel repository proposed for Yucca Mountain, Nev. The Utah facility could begin accepting shipments as early as 2007.

Goshute representatives, through their attorney, expressed support for the PFS license. On the other side, the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service on Monday presented to the NRC anti-PFS petitions signed by about 6,600 individuals representing nearly 250 local, state, national and international organizations, including 19 American Indian groups.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.