Decision to deny PFS lease shocks 2

The two key players in a plan to store nuclear waste in Tooele County said they were surprised by the Bureau of Indian Affair's decision to deny the lease to allow Private Fuel Storage to use Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation land.

Chairman Leon Bear of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians said Friday he had yet to see the ruling. He declined to comment in detail until after he could review it and speak with his attorney and PFS representatives.

"This was a valid lease, and they're coming around and saying we couldn't do it," he said.

Bear's attorney, Joseph Thibodeau, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The Goshutes had sent letters on April 21 and May 17 to James Cason, associate deputy secretary who oversees the BIA, asking for "immediate action" on the lease, according to the decision, and they "also made numerous phone calls to Department officials demanding immediate action."

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said PFS officials were still examining documents and were surprised by the announcement.

"It should have been a pretty easy thing to sign off on the lease. All the conditions were met," Martin said. "We are looking at (the decision) in detail and trying to determine what parts of it we will want to challenge."

Because a permanent storage site is overdue, PFS — a consortium of nuclear utilities — had wanted to create an interim storage facility on the 18,000-acre reservation in Tooele County, about 50 miles from Salt Lake City.

Interior Department Spokesman Shane Wolfe said that under law, the Interior Department has final say over the lease, so neither the tribe nor PFS had to be involved in the final process.

An environmental study of the land on the reservation had also looked at another site to house the waste, but PFS and the tribe would have to amend the lease, and PFS would have to apply for a new license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Utah had asked former Interior Secretary Gale Norton to disapprove the lease, and she agreed to reopen the public comment period last December. A 90-day public comment earlier this year drew roughly 6,000 comments.