Friday, May 26, 2000
Deseret News
Salt Lake City, UtahUnhappy Leavitt says money sealed N-waste deal
The issue should be safety, governor tells KUED group
By Dennis Romboy
Cash sealed Tooele County's deal with a consortium of nuclear power utilities that intend to store nuclear waste on the Goshute Indian reservation in Skull Valley, Gov. Mike Leavitt suggested Thursday.
Deseret News staff writer"I would hope this debate could be about safety, and not money," Leavitt said at his monthly KUED-TV news conference.
Tooele County struck a financial deal this week with Private Fuel Storage (PFS) that could mean millions of dollars to the county if it stores spent nuclear fuel rods on the Goshute Indian reservation. The agreement would pay the county $500,000 a year in lieu of property taxes after the facility is built. The county will also receive a fee of about $3,000 for each cask of nuclear waste stored at the site. Until then, another $5,000 a month will go to the county to foster educational efforts beginning now. Leavitt isn't pleased with the county's agreement to store spent nuclear fuel rods in Skull Valley and said he'll use whatever environmental, legal and political means possible to keep the waste out of Utah. He said he's encouraged the U.S. Department of Energy has indicated it doesn't see the rationale for moving the waste to a temporary storage site.
"We don't want it here," he said. "If it's so safe they ought to leave it where it is." PFS wants to store thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel rods in concrete casks on tribal land pending completion of a permanent waste storage site, possibly at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The total cost of the project is estimated at $3.1 billion if fully developed over four years.
Sue Martin, PFS spokeswoman, said the deal with the county is not a "payoff," despite the fact that PFS would not have had to pay property taxes because the site would be on tribal land.
The facility would be built about 40 miles west of Salt Lake City. Leavitt said he does not want waste that will be "lethally hot for 10,000 years" stored so close to the heavily populated Wasatch Front. Leavitt noted the concrete casks would be stored in the same area where two cruise missiles have gone astray, one that was shot down and another that crashed into a trailer.
Tooele officials see the project as an economic development opportunity.
Leavitt, who earlier in the week discussed economic development with leaders in several rural areas, said his efforts to stop the plan is not an attempt to thwart rural development because "I don't think you'll find many rural counties that are seeing the virtue in making Utah home to high-level nuclear waste." This is a safety issue, not an economic development issue, Leavitt said.