The senators are asking the Bureau of Land Management to prevent Private Fuel Storage from building the transfer facility on federal land near Interstate 80 as part of a public comment period on the project.

The proposed transfer facility is where 44,000 tons of nuclear reactor fuel would be moved from trains to trucks, then driven down a two-lane highway to the planned temporary storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

"Currently, there is no plan or commitment for security either for the intermodal transfer facility or the truck transport of [spent nuclear fuel] casks from the facility to the Skull Valley Reservation," the senators wrote in a letter to the BLM on Tuesday. "This lack of security presents an unacceptable risk to Utah citizens."

Sue Martin, spokeswoman for PFS, said the senators' suggestion that the waste would not be protected is false. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Transportation set standards for shipments, including the transfer point.

"Of course we would comply with those regulations, which include armed guards and various other measures," Martin said. "If the implication in what the politicians are saying is that there is no security, that is absolutely false."

The transfer facility is essentially the only remaining option for PFS to deliver the waste to the temporary storage site. Congress passed legislation creating a wilderness area adjacent to the Indian reservation, blocking construction of a rail line to transport the spent nuclear fuel.

Glenn Carpenter, manager of the BLM's Salt Lake City field office, said more than 2,000 public comments have been received so far, and several hundred more have been pouring into the office each of the last several days as the May 8 deadline approaches. However, many have not shed new light on the decision-making, he said.

"Many of the comments we have received have, in effect, been votes and that's not exactly what we were hoping to have," said Carpenter. "We were looking for empirical data we might be able to use in our analysis. While we respect people's feelings, votes aren't what we were looking for."

Hatch and Bennett also argued that the transfer facility violates the land management plan for the area, would hurt Air Force training on the nearby Utah Test and Training Range, and would be a target for terrorists intent on stealing nuclear material or blowing up the transfer facility.

Martin said the NRC has reviewed the threat of an aircraft crash at the facility and found it to be so remote that it granted the license. "We really believe that issue has been put to rest," she said.

The NRC granted PFS a license to build the facility in February, but the remaining pieces of the former consortium - which has lost several members - must have a way to deliver the waste to the facility and adequate funding for the project.