No nuclear waste, period

The results of a new Dan Jones & Associates poll on Private Fuel Storage LLC placing a nuclear waste repository on Utah' West Desert are a proverbial slam dunk. Utahns overwhelmingly oppose a proposal to "temporarily" store up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on tribal lands in Tooele's Skull Valley. In a poll of 400 Utahns conducted for KSL-TV and the Deseret Morning News, 84 percent of 400 people polled oppose the nuclear waste repository.

Beyond that, more than two thirds of the Utahns polled favor a special tax on the operation.

The Deseret Morning News opposes the Private Fuel Storage proposal and urges local, state and national leaders to remain diligent in the fight to keep nuclear waste out of Utah. As the poll, commissioned by the Deseret Morning News, indicates, it's clearly not welcome here. But the second question on the poll, which showed Utahns want to tax nuclear waste if it comes here, is fraught with problems. Now is not the time to be entertaining the notion that it is inevitable that the Skull Valley site will be established. All efforts need to be focused on keeping nuclear waste out of the state, period.

For that matter, the notion of taxing one business exclusively raises constitutional problems. The land where PFS plans to establish the nuclear waste facility is owned by the Skull Valley band of the Goshute Indian Tribe. A state tax can't be applied because the plant would be built on sovereign Indian land. A tax on the use of roads or railroads on which to transport the waste would likely run afoul of the U.S. Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause.

Truly, this issue boils down to a simple principle: The Intermountain West should not be viewed as a dumping ground for the nation's spent nuclear fuel.

Even if the state were able to affix a tax on the operation, no financial benefit would outweigh the downside of Utah becoming a nuclear waste dump. This issue has become even more critical given the ongoing problems at Yucca Mountain. A "temporary" repository in Utah could become permanent under the present climate. "Temporary" — in the eyes of the federal government — is 40 years.

Neither the PFS proposal nor Yucca Mountain should be viewed as a solution to the nation's nuclear waste disposal problem. The debate and the solutions are far more complex than storing it in an above-ground facility on Utah's West Desert or placing it underground in a facility that has been the subject of ongoing investigations regarding quality control and other issues.

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