Even if Bear were to be removed from office, the band would probably be legally bound to the PFS deal under terms of the contract, and it could take years and years of litigation to resolve any attempt to pull out, Goldtooth said.

PFS opponents are trying to raise public awareness of the PFS proposal in light of a hearing scheduled Wednesday on an appeal by the state of Utah of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board's decision. The full NRC will then make a decision on whether to accept or reject the recommendations of the board.

Utah officials have been fighting the PFS proposal for years, but so far all attempts to challenge the project in court have failed and the state's contentions before nuclear waste regulators that the project posed insurmountable risks were rejected by the licensing board, a quasi-judicial body within the NRC that advises the commissioners.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is continuing the opposition efforts, and last week he sent a letter to the organizers of Monday's event, saying "your unified message on behalf of the millions of people your collective organizations represent is both heartwarming and overwhelming."

Some 350 different organizations have now signed on to a letter to the NRC opposing the PFS license.

"Shipping nuclear waste to Utah does not eliminate terrorism or radiological risks at operating nuclear power plants, but extrapolates those serious risks to the Skull Valley band of Goshute Indians, residents of Utah and communities along the transportation route," Huntsman wrote.

If that fails and PFS is licensed, Kevin Kamps with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service predicted an outpouring of nonviolent civil disobedience as tens of thousands of Americans seek to stop the shipments of waste through thousands of communities — just as 20,000 Germans turned out to block waste shipments there.

Kamps predicted people "will be doing everything in their power" to stop the waste shipments.

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E-mail: spang@desnews.com