NRC chief's comments anger foes of nuclear waste

State officials and activists opposed to the proposed storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah are dismayed by the attitude of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission toward safety risks of the project.

But a spokeswoman for the company proposing to build the facility, Private Fuel Storage, said the nuclear industry has shown it is safe to transport and store such wastes.

Nils A. Diaz, chairman of the NRC, does not believe undue risks would be posed by 40,000 casks of spent nuclear fuel if they are sent to a temporary storage plant in Utah. PFS proposes to build the facility in Tooele County on land owned by the Skull Valley band of the Goshute Indians.

Located about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, it would store highly radioactive spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants across the country.

Diaz said residents of the Wasatch Front would not suffer health or environmental damage because of the storage, even if a terrorist attack breached some of the containers. They "pose no radiological hazard with the present weaponry" available to terrorists, he said.

The concentration of canisters could make it so an attack by aircraft could damage a few that were knocked together, he said. But even if some were breached, Diaz added, radiation leakage would be confined to the immediate area, not reaching more than two miles beyond the site.

But suppose a train transporting spent fuel rods was attacked in a more populated setting, said Jason Groenewold, director of the Health Environment Alliance of Utah.

"If that happens in the heart of the Wasatch Front on our rail lines, that would be devastating to our economy and to our community," Groenewold said.

Estimates are that shipments of nuclear power plant radioactive wastes "would travel past the homes of approximately 50 million Americans as nuclear waste is transported to the West," he said.

Groenewold said Utah's congressional delegation should stand firmly with Nevada and insist that waste must be stored in the areas where it was generated. Nevada officials have long fought the establishment of a permanent high-level waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain.

Sue Martin, spokeswoman for PFS, said a facility like the one the company proposes building "clearly involves potentially hazardous materials." But the nuclear power industry has developed "the experience and the expertise to know that these materials can be transported and stored safely," she said.

"This is not a new technology that we are proposing," she said, noting it has been in operation for more than 20 years in some locations. "In fact, in the whole history of the commercial nuclear power industry in this country, there has never been a radiation related injury or fatality."