Huntsman lawyer raps PFS chief's comments

The governor's legal counsel in Washington and the Utah congressional delegation Thursday blasted comments by the head of Private Fuel Storage who said a newly created federal wilderness area won't stop him from building a railroad to haul nuclear waste to Utah's west desert for storage.

"I really am at a loss to figure out what it is Mr. (John) Parkyn is arguing" if he "suggests he can somehow build this rail spur through the wilderness area, what his legal theory would be," attorney Mike Lee said.

"The basis for any such theory completely escapes me," Lee said, and all other lawyers he knows who are familiar with wilderness law.

Lee was commenting on the statements that Parkyn, PFS chairman, made Wednesday during an NRC conference in Maryland. Parkyn held up a copy of the license, saying he didn't think anyone could block the project.

In its ongoing effort to thwart PFS's plans, the state filed a new petition this week with the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., challenging the license that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted PFS to operate the high-level nuclear waste storage facility in Skull Valley, Tooele County.

Parkyn indicated the recently designated federal wilderness area, created largely to block the company's preferred rail spur route, would not prevent another rail route.

It was not clear if Parkyn meant a railroad route could be built to the site without crossing the wilderness boundaries.

A spokeswoman for PFS said she could not comment on the chairman's statement as she had not been involved in briefings. But what was apparent is that he thinks wilderness character does not extend throughout the official wilderness area.

"That doesn't mean you can't put a railroad there, whether Sen. (Orrin) Hatch understands that or not," Parkyn said.

Parkyn said the 100,000-acre Cedar Mountain Wilderness, created in January, is not a real wilderness area. Utah's members of Congress just "drew a bubble" around the mountains to block the nuclear waste, he added.

According to the federal Wilderness Act, except for administering the area and for such purposes as emergency rescue, "there shall be no commercial enterprise and no permanent road within any wilderness area . . . no temporary road, no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation within any such area."

Hatch, R-Utah, disagreed with Parkyn's statement that the project is going ahead.