Senate panel OKs Kempthorne

Members of Utah's congressional delegation said the Idaho governor understands issues facing Western communities affected by public lands, including the controversial Private Fuel Storage nuclear waste storage site proposed for Tooele County.

The Bureau of Land Management has to approve land PFS would need to use to build a transfer facility to take waste to the proposed site.

The department also has to maintain the new Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area approved by Congress late last year that protects the Utah Test and Training Range but also blocks off a portion of land PFS wanted to use to start a rail line that would move waste to the site.

Hatch and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, sent their own comments to the BLM last week outlining why PFS is not in the public interest.

The senators focused on the transfer facility because the new wilderness area blocks the rail option.

"The public has an interest in maintaining normal access to the Skull Valley Road, and that access would certainly be harmed were the BLM to approve PFS's ITF (intermodal transfer facility) application," the senators wrote.

The BLM stopped taking comment on Monday on whether approving the PFS right away for a transfer facility or a rail line is in the public interest. The governor and the state's congressional delegation have been urging residents to write BLM to say it is not.

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Contributing: Joe Bauman

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E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com