The plan is unanimously backed by the three-member San Juan County Commission, including Chairman Lynn Stevens, who recently was tapped by Huntsman to head the state's newly created Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office.

San Juan County probably will send the request for a study to Huntsman next week, County Commissioner Bruce Adams said.

But Huntsman's chief of staff, Jason Chaffetz, reiterated Wednesday that the governor opposes any attempt to bring high-level nuclear waste into the state.

“There is no gray area for us. This is black and white. Absolutely, positively there is no way the governor is interested in storing nuclear waste anywhere in Utah,” Chaffetz said. “Nuclear waste storage is not our idea of economic development. This governor is not going to do anything to support that or even study that.”

Chaffetz said Stevens' appointment to the Huntsman administration will not affect the governor's stance.

The Lisbon Valley proposal is not new. San Juan County officials first suggested the site more than a decade ago and it was among the state Schools and Institutional Trust Lands (SITLA) locations discussed by the Utah Legislature as part of a 2003 “Plan B” proposal as an alternative to the proposed nuclear storage facility on the Skull Valley land of the Goshute Indians. Plan B quickly died after it surfaced publicly.

What is new is the county's proposal to construct a railroad spur to carry nuclear waste from Cisco or Thompson Springs across the La Sal Mountains to Lisbon Valley. In the past, officials discussed trucking the material from rail lines near Cisco to the SITLA site.

“We think and we propose that a possible route could bring spent nuclear rods by rail through Cisco, through a low population area, across the Colorado River near Dewey Bridge maybe on the east or west side [of the La Sals],” Adams said. “We're trying to keep it away from high population areas like Moab.”

Adams said that the county agrees with the state's opposition to creating a high-level nuclear waste storage facility at Skull Valley because the proposed site is too close to large population centers and would bring little financial benefit to the state. San Juan officials also oppose a similar plan for Yucca Mountain in Nevada because of its location, he said.

But Adams said creating a storage facility on state School Trust lands in Lisbon Valley could reap financial benefits for state residents.

“We're looking at SITLA land because all the benefit would then go to school kids,” Adams said, putting the benefit to Utah economy at as much as $12 billion.

“That would go a long way toward relieving the tax burden for state residents,” he said.

Much of the uranium used in nuclear reactors originated from Charlie Steen's mining operations in Lisbon Valley in the 1960s, Adams said. The county has not discussed the idea with SITLA officials, and state law currently prohibits storing nuclear waste in Utah, Associate Director John Andrews said.

lchurch@citlink.net