This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
WASHINGTON - Utah's House members are urging a key budget leader to reject an offer from Private Fuel Storage to store most of the nation's nuclear waste on a Utah Indian reservation. The letter to House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson lays out the familiar list of reasons they oppose the PFS site: Its proximity to the Air Force training range, a lack of financial assurances, questions about governance of the Skull Valley Goshute tribe. It was signed by Reps. Rob Bishop, Jim Matheson and Chris Cannon and hand-delivered by Bishop on Tuesday. In an earlier letter to Hobson and others, PFS Chairman John Parkyn offered to contract with the Energy Department to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the site at a cost of about $60 million annually until a permanent waste repository can be built at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Hobson asked the Energy Department to look at the proposal, but he did not endorse it. - Robert Gehrke
