Utah Loses Nuclear Dump Suit

By Bonnie Urfer

WASHINGTON, DC — The state of Utah recently lost a legal battle to keep high-level radioactive waste off the state’s Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. The Washington, DC, Circuit Court of Appeals made its 3-0 decision February 24. The ruling is significant since the “away from reactor” argument has been a primary issue in the struggle against Private Fuel Storage. PFS is a consortium of eight private utility companies that signed a lease to store up to 44,000 tons of fuel rods from its nuclear power reactors above ground in steel casks on 100 acres of the reservation for up to 40 years.

Lawyers for Utah argued that the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act never explicitly granted the Nuclear Regulatory Commisison the authority to license “away from reactor” irradiated fuel storage sites operated by private entities. Utah also opposed the dump for safety reasons and argued that a high-level waste dump would have a detrimental effect on the state’s image.

The NRC relied on the principle of omission to defend its licensing. NRC attorney Grace Kim said, “If Congress had in fact intended to prohibit, disallow or exclude such facilities, it most likely would have done so in clear and explicit terms. Regardless of how you read the language, there is no such prohibition.” The appeals court judges agreed.

The Yucca Mountain site in southern Nevada is the federally- designated dump site for the deadly radioactive waste. The PFS proposal for a “temporary” storage site at Goshute, with a $3.1 billion price tag, would relieve the utilities of some waste while the legal battle over Yucca Mt. drags on.

The court’s ruling may also affect the outcome of a separate case pending before the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver. In that case, Utah is appealing a U.S. District Court judge’s ruling that a package of laws passed by Utah to block fuel rod storage at Goshute is unconstitutional.

Some tribal members oppose the PFS deal signed by the tribe’s chairman. The chairman is currently under federal indictment for alleged fraud and theft.

A last-ditch argument by Utah is that storage of irradiated fuel rods on the Goshute Reservation poses an unacceptable risk because of the nearby Air Force test and training range. Stray bombs, errant planes or wayward missiles could crash the site, destroy casks and release catastrophic amounts of radiation. Last year, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board agreed that these risks were too great, halted the dump proposal, and postponed further arguments until later this year.