The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has voted to approve Private Fuel Storage's license to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley reservation and is seeking BLM's approval for the transportation route to the site.
But BLM can't sign off on the transportation issues until the Air Force studies whether the nuclear waste dump would impair the Air Force's use of the adjacent Utah Test and Training Range, because of language that former Rep. Jim Hansen added to a defense bill in 2000.
"I view it definitely as a snag because we have a moratorium," said Glenn Carpenter, field manager of the BLM's Salt Lake office. "Whether the Air Force completes its study or if it's disposed of legislatively or otherwise doesn't matter much to me. We're restricted from completing any land-use planning activity until that requirement is met."
Congress has not allocated any money to conduct the study and, although the Air Force could fund the study itself, it has not chosen to do so, leaving the BLM's approval in limbo.
Carpenter notified the NRC of the BLM's position in a letter in August, but he said nothing has changed since then. The NRC voted in September to approve the PFS license.
Sen. Orrin Hatch seized on the BLM's refusal to green-light the project as another indication the Bush administration opposes the PFS plan.
"We're making headway on this. BLM has made this very clear this isn't going to happen," Hatch said in an interview Tuesday. "The White House made it very clear this isn't going to happen. The Department [of Energy] has told us it's not going to happen."
PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the group was still reviewing the letter but disputed the impact.
"Anything like this that gets inserted into the process and creates a delay is of course a concern for us," Martin said. "Will it will affect the issuance of a license? We don't know. We understand the NRC is preparing to issue a license."
She added that the study should have been completed by now. "They have known for years now they have needed to do the study and they just haven't done it."
The Air Force study requirement is one of the obstacles Utah's congressional delegation has been able to erect to hinder the planned nuclear storage site.
The delegation also is fighting to include language in an upcoming defense bill that would create a wilderness area around the Skull Valley Goshute reservation, which would prevent BLM from permitting a rail line to the reservation.
PFS has said that could force it to ship the waste in trucks along a highway to the reservation, but that could require additional environmental reviews.
Carpenter said the BLM also has identified some historic resources - such as the path followed by the doomed Donner Party and the Lincoln Highway, the first-transcontinental highway built in the early 1900s - that the PFS rail line would cross.
A mitigation plan has been proposed, which Carpenter said requires PFS to build a visitor center and invest in other costly projects. But he said it would be premature to approve an agreement binding PFS to spend the money to build those projects until the Air Force study is finished and obstacles to the site are cleared.
"As far as we're concerned the matter is closed unless and until the moratorium is fulfilled in one manner or another," Carpenter said. "We're very serious and very concerned about the perception of us making a decision without following proper protocol, proper legal process."
---
Tribune reporter Thomas Burr contributed to this report
