NRC chief downplays Utah nuclear peril

But Huntsman disputes nuclear-risk comments

Published: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 9:15 a.m. MST
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
WASHINGTON — The nation's top nuclear regulator is assuring residents of the Wasatch Front they will not suffer health or environmental risks should 4,000 casks of spent nuclear fuel be stored in Tooele County, even in the unlikely event that a terrorist attack breached some of the containers.

Nils A. Diaz, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told reporters at the National Press Club on Monday the canisters are designed to withstand attacks and "pose no radiological hazard with the present weaponry" available to terrorists.

"I think the casks there will be well protected," Diaz said.

The NRC chairman said the concentration of canisters in one location could make it so that an attack — by an aircraft flying into a cluster of casks, for example — could result in damage to a few casks being knocked into one another. But even if the casks were breached, the radiation leakage would be confined to the immediate impact area, and radiation would not extend beyond a two-mile zone around the site, he said.

The NRC will soon ratify or reject the recommendation of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that Private Fuel Storage be granted an NRC license to store spent fuel for up to 40 years in above-ground casks in Skull Valley about 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

Story continues below

The NRC is expected to approve the PFS license, although Diaz insisted the NRC does not rubber-stamp decisions by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an independent judicial arm of the NRC. In at least three or four recent cases, the NRC went against the board's recommendation, Diaz said.

Whether PFS gets an NRC license and becomes operational are "both big ifs," he said.

Diaz pledged the NRC would review the official findings without political interference, most of it expected to come from the Utah delegation. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. was in Washington, D.C., Monday also lobbying against PFS.

Huntsman, who has been pushing an agenda of waste storage at nuclear power plant sites and reprocessing of nuclear waste, told the Deseret Morning News that he was encouraged by meetings with Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, with whom he shared Utah's concerns over homeland security issues surrounding the site.

"We need to buy 30 to 50 years so the (reprocessing) technology can catch up," Huntsman said. "We need to buy time to accommodate a policy to allow on-site storage and reprocessing."

Huntsman is of the mind that Utah ought to be supporting Nevada's opposition to storage of spent nuclear fuel, whether permanently at Yucca Mountain or temporarily at Skull Valley. Utah's House delegation supports that position to some degree, but it puts Huntsman at odds with Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who support the Yucca Mountain solution.

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

Image
Deseret Morning News graphic

Related content
previousnext

Latest comments

to lala: you are unbelievable. What if this were your 16 year old daughter?...

that's is a steep price for a player coming off the bench... not worth it

Obama controls all

RedShirt, "...how about the web site US Governemnt Spending, which uses...

This is a perfect example of why we threw his backside out of office. Fat cat...

This just goes to show that we're now a culture of "guilty until proven...

In this life there are few certainties, one you can count on is a Scandal of...

Have a good life Millsap.

apparently they haven't done a proper investigation yet, since it's...

As grevious as this incidence was perhaps Bro. Pratt still needs a friend or...

Obviously, if he did it, he should pay the maximum penalty (as should the...

Advertisements