In a major setback for state officials who fought for years to block it, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission board has ruled in favor of allowing Private Fuel Storage to build a facility in Tooele County to temporarily store the nation's spent nuclear fuel rods.

Assuming the full NRC itself agrees, that cleared the last roadblock the state had thrown up against the project.

The facility is planned for land owned by the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indian Tribe, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The site could store 4,000 steel-encased concrete casks, each 20 feet high and 11 feet in diameter, holding highly radioactive spent fuel rods. One federal court report says that as of 2003, nuclear reactors in the United States had generated about 49,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel.

The PFS plant is supposed to offer temporary storage, for up to 40 years. But recent political opposition to a permanent facility planned for Yucca Mountain, Nev., has raised doubts about the Nevada plan.

If the Yucca Mountain plan is not implemented, the Skull Valley "temporary storage" facility could become permanent. "That's obviously our fear," Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, said after the ruling.

Utah government and private groups expressed disappointment with the decision by the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, charged the NRC seems to have a bias in favor of the nuclear industry. But a spokeswoman for PFS said she was hopeful because this was a culmination of years of effort, and now the board has ruled in favor of the company on all issues.

The crux of Thursday's ruling is that the possible crash of an Air Force F-16 into the facility is not likely enough to release deadly radiation to preclude the project. It was a split decision, with one board member issuing a dissenting report. (See story on this page.)

Decision revisited

The board overturned an earlier decision in which it agreed with the state that the possibility of a crash would make the plant too dangerous. The reversal was based on further considerations, such as whether, in the event of a crash, a cask holding deadly fuel material would actually spew radiation.

Sharpening the debate is the fact that 7,000 flights of F-16s from Hill Air Force Base go over Skull Valley every year, as the route is near the Utah Test and Training Range.

When the flight danger was argued about two years ago, the board ruled the chance of an F-16 crash was higher than the cutoff point for acceptable odds, which is a one-in-a-million risk. The hazard was "four times too high to permit facility licensing," under that criterion.

But when new criteria were analyzed — centered around the chance of a crash actually releasing radiation — the danger dropped, according to the board.