On-site nuke storage only logical

Kudos go to Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations who have filed legislation calling for the storage of nuclear waste at nuclear power plants. The bills should send a strong message to the nuclear power industry that neither Yucca Mountain nor Tooele County's Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation should be considered solutions to the nation's nuclear waste problem.

Moreover, federal legislation would trump differing state laws, some of which prohibit nuclear waste storage in their respective states.

Storing the waste where it is generated makes the most sense. As Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, told the Deseret Morning News, nuclear power plants are "going to have waste anyway." What is the point of fouling two other sites, far from where the waste was generated? What's the sense of transporting spent nuclear waste across the country, which would be a national security issue in the post-Sept. 11 world?

Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, raises another critical issue: reprocessing of nuclear waste. So long as there is no national plan for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, Cannon predicts the debate over storage will continue and the western United States will continue to be at risk as "temporary" or permanent waste repositories.

Cannon is correct. There must be a resolution to the reprocessing issue. Likewise, the Department of Energy needs to take possession of nuclear waste on-site at nuclear reactors, which would relieve a nagging liability issues.

To hear Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tell it, Yucca Mountain will never open. It is, indeed, mired in questions over the science of the project and quality control. The matter remains under investigation.

The proposed storage facility on tribal lands in Tooele County, which is backed by Private Fuel Storage LLC, has suffered some setbacks recently. Three utilities in the PFS consortium have announced they are pulling out of above-ground storage facility planned for Utah's western desert. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says the announcements mean 57 percent of PFS' investments are now on hold. PFS officials say the project was always going to be done in phases, and many companies with storage needs could sign on in the future.

Either way, it's fair to say that the support for the project is not as robust as it once was, and Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations are resolved to keep the waste where it is.

The fight is far from over, but recent events suggest an encouraging shift in momentum.