Huntsman bends ears in D.C.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. spent the past two days in Washington, D.C., pitching administration officials on several issues, including his ongoing fight to keep high-level nuclear waste out of Utah.

After meetings with several cabinet members including recently named Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Tuesday, Huntsman said he remains optimistic the proposed Private Fuel Storage site in Tooele County can be stopped.

Utah is waiting for a decision from the Department of the Interior on whether a road on Bureau of Land Management property can be used to transport spent nuclear fuel rods to the proposed PFS site on Goshute Indian land in Skull Valley.

Huntsman said Kempthorne, who resigned earlier this year as Idaho's governor to take the federal post, didn't reveal his position on the use of the BLM road. "I think he understands the challenges," Huntsman said, but tipping his hand would have been "imprudent for him."

Although there is no deadline for the decision, the governor said he believes Kempthorne is "more inclined to act sooner rather than later." That, Huntsman said, would be best for the state. "This is an issue we need to get over and done with."

The governor said he also raised the PFS issue with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, even though his department is not directly involved. "I asked him to not forget about the importance of this issue to our state," Huntsman said.

Bodman heard the governor's concerns before, when the pair met privately during a Western Governors' Association meeting in Colorado last summer. Huntsman said it's an issue that takes "a lot of massaging and a lot of tender loving care with senior officials."

After Tuesday's meetings on PFS, the governor said he believes the issue "is situated very nicely for a final outcome that will be very favorable to our state." Huntsman said he's "always felt optimistic. I continue to be optimistic."

On Monday, Huntsman said he talked with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson about speeding up the search to find a reason for high levels of mercury showing up in Utah waterfowl and fish.

"This is a concern to me," the governor said, noting the contaminant could be coming from gold mines in Nevada, coal-fired power plants in the region or even from as far away as China.

"I wanted to make sure we were all together on this one and it was registering at the highest levels of the EPA. It is now," the governor said. Utah's Department of Environmental Quality is already working with the federal agency to identify causes of the mercury.

In May, DEQ Executive Director Dianne Nielsen said testing for mercury in the Great Salt Lake's brine shrimp and waterfowl would cost $1.5 million. She also said then that there were significant concerns about mercury in fish from Lake Powell.

Last fall, Utahns were warned not to eat two types of ducks from the lake's marshes. And late last summer, the state issued health advisories about consuming certain fish from particular streams.

Huntsman, a former U.S. ambassador to Singapore, was scheduled to conclude his visit to Washington, D.C., Tuesday night as the guest of honor at a US-ASEAN (Association of South Eastern Asian Nations) dinner.

The governor will host the group next week at a state dinner July 18, the first day of an association conference in Utah that will include meetings with various business organizations and the University of Utah's Asian studies department.

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E-mail: lisa@desnews.com

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