State officials to consider settling legal fees for PSF, Skull Valley Goshutes

Members of the state's Legislative Management Committee will meet Tuesday to talk about settling up with Private Fuel Storage and the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, who successfully fought state laws designed to thwart a nuclear waste storage site.

Diane R. Nielson, executive director of the DEQ, confirmed that the settlement is for attorneys' fees but did not say how much money was involved.

The issue involved state laws passed about transportation of high-level nuclear waste in Utah. In a challenge by PFS and the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indians, "we lost that case" before U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell, she said.

Following that ruling in Salt Lake City, the state sent the matter to the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Denver. Losing there, Utah officials asked the Supreme Court to review the case; last December, the highest court declined to hear it.

The PFS high-level nuclear storage plan appears dead, after recent federal decisions refusing to allow construction of the temporary storage site on Goshute land. But the lawyers for PFS and the Goshutes must be paid by the state, as winners in their legal challenge.

Nielson said the state attempted to "provide a framework similar to laws other states have for managing high-level nuclear waste traveling through the state."

In the 10th Circuit decision, the judges wrote that PFS and the Skull Valley Band "have properly asserted that their legally protected interests have been injured by the challenged statutes. ...

"On the merits, we agree with the district court's ruling that the Utah statutes are preempted by federal law."

State laws passed between 1998 and 2001 would have established state licensing requirements for storing spent nuclear fuel, required county governments to impose restrictions on the material, and allowed the Legislature and governor to regulate road construction to the storage site.

However, federal law — the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 — takes precedence over state laws, the court ruled.

Huntsman's office would not confirm the amount of money agreed to in the settlement.

"The governor is supportive of settling with both the attorneys for PFS and the attorneys for the band," his general counsel, Michele Christiansen, said. "It's a good resolution in the sense the possibility would have been out there the state could have ended up paying more in attorneys fees."

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com

Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche