BLM seeking comment on nuclear-waste plan

WASHINGTON — The Bureau of Land Management wants to hear from the public on whether it should grant Private Fuel Storage access to federal land in order to ship nuclear waste to the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation.

The bureau posted a four-page notice announcing the 90-day public comment period in the Federal Register on Tuesday, following up on a letter sent to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in December.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs cannot sign off on PFS's lease of the Goshute land without the BLM's right-of-way approval. PFS filed the right-of-way applications in 1998, and the environmental impact statement was finished in 2001, according to BLM Deputy Director Jim Hughes.

In the Federal Register notice, Hughes also acknowledged President Bush signed a law that declared 100,000 acres of land in Utah as federally protected wilderness. That protects the Utah Test and Training Range but also effectively prevents hauling nuclear waste onto Goshute land via the PFS-preferred rail route. Waste could still be moved via truck, but PFS would need to build a transfer facility that would also require public land use, Hughes said.