Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said it was apparent to him the Times never really took the time to look into the matter, dismissing in the editorial local concerns over the safety of the site as "overblown."

"I wonder if the New York Times would be interested to know that the NRC's Atomic Licensing Board initially rejected the site as unsafe," he said. Private Fuel Storage, the consortium of nuclear utilities promoting the Skull Valley site, "was only able to turn that decision around after two of the three judges on the board had been replaced. I would hope that before the Times writes another piece on Skull Valley that they at least read (the) judge's withering dissent."

Cannon chastised the Times over its erroneous contention that PFS's proposal to store 44,000 tones of spent nuclear fuel in above-ground canisters on Skull Valley tribal lands in Tooele County, is a "private corporate" decision.

"This is about public policy and doing what is right and safe for Utahns and everyone in the United States," he said. "It makes absolutely no sense to transport this material across the country at great risk only to ship it to another site if Yucca Mountain was to fail for whatever reason."

Those feelings have been echoed by activists across the nation since the NRC ruled last week that PFS should be granted a license to store the waste. Closer to Utah, Jason Groenewold with Healthy Environmental Alliance of Utah (HEAL) said he was surprised the Times was willing to take a position without fully understanding the issues at stake.

"Clearly they do not understand that there is a very real risk that a jet could crash into the site, that the possibilities of terrorist attacks were not even really considered during the deliberations by the NRC, and that the financial assurances were never disclosed to the public," he said.

The problem he sees is that a lot of people read the editorial position of the Times, and for many it could be their first introduction to the issue without knowing the full details.

"They may think, 'Oh, yeah, what's the big deal?' because the Times failed to mention what the fundamental problems are, which relate to the risk of transportation, the possibility of sabotage or terrorist attack, and that a major accident could take place where no emergency response plan would be created to deal with it."

For some, the editorial was as predictable as a Jason Blair feature story.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. called the editorial "stultifyingly stupid," but added that it is "not uncharacteristic for the New York Times' view of the world to end at the Hudson River."

Added Mary Jane Collipriest, spokeswoman for Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, "Sen. Bennett doesn't put much stock in the opinions of the New York Times. Today's editorial demonstrates why that's a good practice."

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E-mail: spang@desnews.com