Hatch attacks Skull Valley plan

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday he and others made an overwhelming case to officials of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security against building a high-level nuclear waste repository in Skull Valley, Tooele County.

In a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon, Hatch said he, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and others met with the federal officials.

"And we made, I think, an overwhelming case" that a repository at Skull Valley "should never come to pass."

An exhibit shown to the Homeland Security officials showed what it would look like to have 4,000 casks holding nuclear fuel rods on a concrete pad. Until now, he said, "the most they've ever had" was 60 casks.

Other points included the U.S. Department of Energy saying earlier that it would not back the repository financially, and the proposed structure's "being (located) on the tip of the Utah Test and Training Range," Hatch said.

Also, Homeland Security officials heard that the repository site is within 15 miles of Salt Lake Municipal Airport, "where thousands of private planes fly in and out." They learned about "all of the various impacts on our population," Hatch said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide in the near future whether to approve a license for a private consortium to begin storing the nuclear waste on the Goshute reservation just west of Salt Lake City.

Hatch told the Deseret Morning News editorial board Monday the waste probably will be dumped in Utah because the NRC doesn't know what to do.

"They don't care about Utah," Hatch said. "There's all kinds of components, but our future's part of that, too."

Hatch said having the nuclear waste positioned in that location — one he sees as a terrorist target — is mind-boggling. He, along with Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., succeeded in getting the Homeland Security experts to come to Utah to study the safety ramifications of storing the waste there.

"We don't need to have people dumping that kind of stuff above ground on us," the senator said.

Hatch said that if he and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, had not voted for waste to be transported to Yucca Mountain, Nev., the waste would have already made its way to Utah.

Hatch wants to know who would pay for damages in the event of an accident, he said.

"We're to the point where we're doing everything we can," Hatch added. "I'm pulling every string I've got."

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