Friday, June 30, 2000
KEEP NUCLEAR WASTE AT ORIGINAL SITES
Hearings over the weekend regarding the proposed storage of nuclear waste in Utah's west desert resulted, as expected, in conflicting opinions as to the wisdom of such a plan.
They also reinforced the position of this page: Keep the nuclear waste where it's generated until a permanent site is ready to accept the shipments.
Utahns are well aware of the attempt by Private Fuel Storage, a consortium representing Midwestern and Eastern nuclear power plants, to ship nuclear waste from the East to the Goshute Indian Reservation, just 40 miles west of Salt Lake City.
The site is designed to be a "temporary" site until a permanent one is constructed — hardly comforting news considering the proposed agreement between Private Fuel Storage and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is for 20 years with a possible extension for another 20.
Under the best of conditions, storing nuclear waste is risky. The 10.4 million spent fuel rods that would be shipped to the Goshute Indian Reservation have a lethal shelf life of 10,000 years.
Transporting 4,000 casks containing 40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste from the Midwest and East to Tooele County by rail has some risks. Then there are the risks at the above ground storage site, such as earthquakes and sabotage.
To move such a large amount of nuclear waste to a temporary or holding site only to be shipped later to a permanent site doesn't make much sense. And once a temporary site becomes home to the nation's waste, what's the incentive to quickly establish a permanent site?
The only place being considered as a permanent repository is Yucca Mountain in Nevada. And, like Utah lawmakers, Nevada lawmakers don't want their state to be somebody else's dumping ground either.
If, the nuclear waste is as safe as some experts proclaim, why are states such as New York, New Jersey and Ohio so anxious to have their waste transported to Utah? People in those states obviously are no more interested in having nuclear waste than Utahns are. But the difference is that's where the waste originated.
Which leads to the only fair conclusion: Keep the waste where it's generated until a permanent site can handle it.