This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The United States has an unsolved nuclear waste problem. It has no place to dispose of highly radioactive waste from the military and the reactors of electric utilities. A federal blue-ribbon commission is studying this problem. Utah's job must be to assure that the commission does not turn a national problem into Utah's problem.
To be blunt, Utah must continue to fight any effort to store or dispose of high-level radioactive nuclear waste in this state.
The blue-ribbon commission is currently taking comment on its draft report, which recommends, among other things, that the United States take two actions at the same time as soon as possible. One is to develop a permanent disposal site that isolates the waste geologically. The second is to develop sites for consolidated interim storage.
That second recommendation should make Utahns' ears burn. They should recall that an outfit called Private Fuel Storage already has a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a 100-acre parking lot to store 44,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent reactor fuel rods in huge casks on the Skull Valley Reservation of the Goshutes. That's about 45 miles from Salt Lake City. PFS is a consortium of eight electric power utilities that operate reactors.
Utah has opposed the PFS project for decades. It must continue that effort, particularly in light of the commission's recommendations.
The reasons for that opposition are numerous and substantial. One is concern about the safety of harboring the waste itself. It could become a target for terrorist action, and it is located near the Air Force's largest domestic test and bombing range.
Aside from the locale itself, the waste would have to be transported to Utah, which entails risks of its own. Then there's the question of whether the storage could become permanent. PFS is only supposed to function for 40 years, but if no permanent disposal site is developed, interim could become permanent.
Given that the Yucca Mountain site for permanent disposal in Nevada is now a dead letter, after years of study and $15 billion, that's a real concern.
The commission is making all kinds of noises about a collaborative process that would include locals in any siting decision. It says that any dump should only be built if the nearby people want it.
Fine. We can give the commission Utah's answer right now: "Hell, no!"