Report Tackles Effects of Goshute N-Waste
Tuesday, July 4, 2000BY JUDY FAHYS
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNEThe federal government has prepared a sizeable report to explain how Utah's land and people might be affected if exhausted nuclear fuel is stored on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in western Utah.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month published its first draft of the document, an environmental impact statement (EIS), and has scheduled meetings in Salt Lake City later this month to discuss it with the public.
The EIS draft represents just one step in a brain-numbing waltz an eight-company consortium must dance with the bureaucracy to get a permit for its nuclear storage facility. The consortium, Private Fuel Storage, wants a federal license to store 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on the reservation, about 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. At the same time, the impact report represents the best chance for the people whose lives might be affected by it to ensure that the federal government truly knows what it is doing if it grants the permit.
Dianne Nielson, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said the state has just begun to look at the report but already sees troublesome omissions and errors. In particular, she noted the impact of wildfires, railroad traffic tie-ups and necessary road improvements as being issues not properly addressed in the report. "It's not a very complete review," she said.
Downwinders, a Utah environmental organization that opposes the waste-storage facility, last week began urging people to get involved in the impact-statement process to help fight the waste-storage facility. The group wants the agencies to give people until next year to comment on the impact statement; they also want more hearings.
Steve Erickson, a member of the environmental group, issued a statement last week that reminded how public outcry in the 1990s helped block the placement of MX missiles in Utah. "Like MX, this deal is about money and politics -- not sound science or smart policy," he said.
"This project, like MX, can be stopped," he concluded. "Utahns, the choice is yours: act now or regret later." Certainly, placement of the $3.1 billion facility in Utah would profoundly affect land and people for a long time. If the facility is built, for at least 20 years, Utah would hold all of the high-level nuclear waste produced during the 30 years American utilities have been making electricity from radioactive materials.
The spent fuel, now being stored at 20 nuclear power plants in California, the Midwest and East, is lethal or carcinogenic to anyone directly exposed to it, and does not decompose for about 10,000 years.
The draft impact report confirms what the consortium has said from the start -- that the facility would have "no serious environmental impacts," according to PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin. It also suggests how the facility and its operation can ease the impacts that are expected.
"The EIS is clearly a way for the public to participate, and we hope they will," said Martin.
Three federal agencies besides the NRC have had a hand in the report. They are the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management and the Surface Transportation Board. Their analysis covers such issues as the facility's effect on the soil, water, air, noise and minerals.
It also discusses the impacts of: a proposed rail line to the site, an alternate site and transportation method, lessening or eliminating some of the likely impacts and even not building the facility at Skull Valley.
The draft EIS also explores what might happen to the ecology, the community and human health, as well as the moral effects of dumping the waste on an Indian area desperate for economic opportunity
NRC has set public meetings on draft EIS July 27 and 28 from 7-10 p.m.
On July 27, a meeting is set for the Arizona Room of the Little America Hotel, 500 South Main St., Salt Lake City. On July 28, a hearing will take place at the Grantsville Middle School, 318 S. Hale St., Grantsville.
Utahns interested in looking at the draft report can find it on the agency's Web site, www.nrc.gov/NRC/NUREGS/indexnum. html.
A limited number of free copies can be obtained by writing to the Office of the Chief Information Officer, Reproduction and Distribution Services Section, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001.
Written comments also will be taken by the federal agencies that wrote the draft. Comments should be submitted to the Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Division of Freedom of Information and Publications Services, Office of Administration, Mail Stop T-6D-59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001.
Comments also may be submitted on the NRC's Web site.
This article can be found on the Salt Lake Tribune web site at: http://www.sltrib.com/07042000/utah/64264.htm