Guv opposes nuclear plant in Utah

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said Thursday that he will oppose a nuclear power plant in Utah until technology is developed to reprocess safely the plant's radioactive waste on site.

"That's a deal-breaker," the governor told the Deseret Morning News in an interview the day after an interim legislative committee discussed a proposal that would allow utilities to recover the cost of building a nuclear power facility even before it begins generating power.

Huntsman successfully led Utah's fight to stop a high-level nuclear waste facility from being built on Goshute Indian land in Tooele County. That facility would have stored high-level waste generated by nuclear power plants around the nation.

The governor said he is also concerned about the liability issues surrounding a nuclear power plant, especially if a Utah facility were to have an accident similar to the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

"This is a long-term proposal at best, I think, because you've got to look at the risk involved, and there is enormous risk potential," Huntsman said of the proposal discussed Wednesday by the Legislature's Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee.

No action was taken on the proposal, and the committee chairman, Rep. Michael Noel, R-Kanab, said Thursday that the legislation circulated at the meeting was intended only as a starting point.

As drafted, the bill would allow utilities to seek the cost of building a nuclear power plant from ratepayers, even before the plant begins generating electricity — and in some cases, even if the facility is never completed.

Noel said it was "unfortunate" the governor opposes the proposal.

"The only way we can meet our needs is through nuclear power," Noel said. He said the amount of waste a Utah plant would generate is "minuscule," and it's unfair to compare that to what the site on the Goshute land would have brought to the state.

"You're talking about bringing waste in from outside the state in massive quantities and storing it," the lawmaker said, calling it disingenuous to balk at a plant here, when the state sometimes uses nuclear power generated out of state through the power grid.

Critics of a nuclear plant in Utah praised the governor's stand.

"Gov. Huntsman wisely understands that building a nuclear reactor here is inconsistent with state policy and jeopardizes the successes that we've had in preventing other states from dumping their waste here," said Vanessa Pearce, executive director of HEAL Utah.