The 2-1 split decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing board gives Utah some ammunition to continue fighting against the construction of a nuclear fuel storage facility in Skull Valley, Tooele County.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is an independent agency of the NRC, ruling on important matters. But ultimate authority is vested in the commission itself.

On Thursday the board shot down arguments by the state of Utah about safety at the site. The board said flights by F-16s over Skull Valley did not make the location too dangerous for the plant Private Fuel Storage wants to build on Goshute Indian land.

That was the ruling of two board members, Michael C. Farrar, who is the chairman, and Paul B. Abramson. But member Peter S. Lam disagreed. All three are administrative law judges.

"I dissent from the majority opinion for the basic reason that the proposed PFS facility has not been demonstrated to meet an established safety standard for accidental aircraft crash hazards," Lam wrote.

A probability and a structural analysis on which the decision was based "both suffer from major uncertainties," he wrote. "These uncertainties fundamentally undermine the validity of the analyses."

Only 57 F-16 accident reports were deemed suitable for analysis and only 15 documented the impact speed, he wrote. "Even if Utah's challenges to the suitability of some of these reports were entirely disregarded, these reports collectively represent a small sample."

Also, he disagreed with the other board members on the ability of the storage casks to remain intact in case of a crash.

"When, as a result of an F-16 crash, the strain in the carbon steel shells of the concrete overpack reaches the failure strain set by the DOE (U.S. Department of Energy) ductility ratio standard, the overpack should be considered to have failed in performing its intended function," Lam wrote.

"All parties' analyses in the evidentiary record show that the strain in the overpack's carbon steel shell significantly exceeds the DOE ductility ratio failure strain. Therefore the overpack is expected to fail in an F-16 crash scenario."

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com