An argument often advanced for sending spent nuclear fuel rods to the West for disposal or storage is a very good reason to keep them where they are, say two members of the state House of Representatives.

Rep. Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, speaker of the House, and Rep. Stephen H. Urquhart, R-St. George, majority whip, say officials maintain that the highly radioactive rods can be safely contained for a long time in dry casks.

"If that's the case, why not just cask them . . . and leave them where they're at?" Curtis asked.

Urquhart and Curtis on Tuesday toured Yucca Mountain, Nev., where the federal government intends to permanently dispose of 70,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, mostly generated by power plants throughout the country.

The two were in Nevada with other members of the High-Level Radioactive Waste Working Group, part of the National Conference of State Legislatures. According to the conference, attendees included state senators, representatives and delegates from 17 states.

The tour "reconfirmed to me that Utah should not be supporting Yucca Mountain" as a repository, Urquhart said in a telephone interview.

More than 90 percent of the radioactive material in spent fuel rods is theoretically reusable, he said, and in 50 years, science may have progressed to the point where this material can be safely reprocessed and reused.

According to a final environmental impact statement, trucks, rail or both may be used to move the material. If mostly trucks were used, about 53,000 shipments would travel on interstate highways over a 24-year period. If the choice is mostly rail, 9,000 to 10,000 rail cars would be sent to Yucca Mountain during the period.

Northern rail routes to the repository site would be through Elko, Carlin, Battle Mountain and Reno, Nev., according to the environmental statement.

Trucks would pass through Salt Lake City. "I-15, the closest interstate highway to the proposed repository, travels through Salt Lake City, Utah, to southern California, passing through Las Vegas," according to the statement.

Moving the nuclear waste is a huge concern to Urquhart. Things can go wrong while material is shipped, he noted, adding, "No one suggests that we only buckle our seat belts if we plan on getting in an accident. . . . Accidents can happen in transportation."

The Utahns said they were surprised how far the Yucca Mountain repository is from completion, after the expenditure of billions of dollars.

"Right now, it's just a big tunnel, a big hole, and I've seen tunnels before," Urquhart said. The tunnel is impressively long, maybe four or five miles. But little has been done to develop the project physically beyond that, other than "some little alcoves where they are conducting some experiments."

He said he understands that nuclear waste storage is an extremely complex problem, "and we do have to deal with it some way. They've put some serious science into this. But at the end of the day, I think the West is being stuck with it because of politics. I don't understand why Western politicians would be willing to play door mat to that."

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com