N-storage license in hand, PFS faces several more steps

WASHINGTON — Private Fuel Storage officially had its license in hand as of Tuesday night, but several steps still need to be fulfilled before nuclear waste would come to Utah.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs needs to approve the lease for 820 acres of land on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele County and the Bureau of Land Management needs to approve the use of land to build a transfer station to take waste off trucks and move it to the nuclear waste storage site.

William H. Ruland, deputy director of Licensing and Inspection Directorate in the Spent Fuel Project Office at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, sent a letter to John Parkyn, chairman of the board of Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C., formally approving the license. The commission had given a draft license to PFS last week for it to review and return. It expires in 2026.

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the BIA approved the lease in 1997 before the consortium of nuclear utilities even applied for a license, but it was on the condition the license be approved. Now that it has been, she said it should be able to sign off on the lease.

BLM is conducting a public comment period right now on whether allowing PFS to use public land would be in the public's best interest. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has encouraged every Utahn to write a letter saying it is not in the best interest because moving nuclear waste through the state to an area near an Air Force base is a bad idea.

Martin said PFS has been marketing the project to nuclear utilities for years but now the effort will continue.

"It is hard to sign on customers until you have a license," Martin said.

PFS is designed to temporarily store 40,000 tons of nuclear waste until the government opens the federal nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Several of PFS's financial backers suspended their support in December, saying they would continue to support Yucca Mountain.

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