Thursday, December 08

Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne has expressed support for legislation that would block a proposed railroad spur to haul highly radioactive nuclear waste to a proposed storage site in Skull Valley.

The legislation, introduced by U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, also would designate wilderness in the Cedar Mountains.

Both provisions are part of legislation dealing with land-use planning on the Utah Test and Training Range imbedded in the 2006 defense authorization act.

Minnesota-based Private Fuel Storage LLC has proposed a temporary storage site for up to 44,000 tons of spent fuel stored in up to 4,000 steel-lined concrete casks on 820 acres leased from the Goshute Tribe on the reservation in Skull Valley.

The company's proposal includes building a railroad spur from the Union Pacific Railroad's mainline. But the spur would cross public land and would need a right of way grant from the BLM.

Part of Bishop's legislation would specifically prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from granting rights of way across the land that railroad would have to cross. A wilderness designation would not affect the railroad route.

In a letter signed Tuesday, Wynne also said that the Cedar Mountain wilderness designation would not impair the use of the west Utah bombing range. But would that statement satisfy a provision in earlier legislation that had temporarily blocked the BLM from granting PFS the right of way for the railroad spur?

"Absolutely not," Bishop spokesman Scott Parker said.

The 2000 defense authorization bill included a provision that blocked any wilderness designation near the west Utah bombing range until the Pentagon evaluated how it would affect training. But it was specific about requiring the Pentagon to complete a study and submit it to Congress, Parker said.

The bill blocked the BLM from amending its 1980s-era land use plan for the area. The rider still blocks any new uses including wind energy sites, changes to gas and oil lease areas and changes in recreational off-road vehicle use. It also precludes the BLM from issuing a right of way for the railroad spur to the proposed PFS site.

"It's always a good sign when you have the secretary of the Air Force saying we're aware of this provision and we like it," said Mike Lee, counsel to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who was in Washington this week lobbying members of Congress to adopt the legislation.

If Wynne's statement were enough to satisfy the provision in the 2000 legislation, however, it would allow the BLM Salt Lake City field office manager Glenn Carpenter to approve the railroad right of way - if Bishop's new legislation fails.

And that would create an interesting political reality, Carpenter said.

But it might all be much ado about nothing.

The license application for PFS, approved in September by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, includes an alternative transportation option that would transfer the spent fuel from rail cars to trucks to be hauled to the storage site.

Bishop's legislation was included in the House-passed version of the defense authorization bill earlier this year, but it is not the Senate version. The leaders of the House Armed Services Committee continue to support the measure, but it is not clear whether their Senate counterparts will agree to include it in the final version.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B7.

This article comes from The Daily Herald

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