[CPEO-MEF] U.S. Withholds Approval for Nuclear Waste Storage on Indian Reserva

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Utah
U.S. Withholds Approval for Nuclear Waste Storage on Indian Reservation
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, March 10 (AP) — Federal regulators today blocked a proposal
by utility companies to store high-level nuclear waste on an Indian
reservation in Utah's western desert, citing dangers posed by a nearby
Air Force training range.

Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight electric utilities, had
sought to store uranium rods from nuclear reactors in casks on the Skull
Valley Goshute Reservation, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, until
a permanent storage complex could be built at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Utah officials objected, raising a number of safety concerns, including
the threat posed by military aircraft and earthquakes.

The Air Force flies thousands of training missions a year over the
sprawling Utah Test and Training Range, near the reservation.

"There is enough likelihood of an F-16 crash into the proposed facility
that such an accident must be deemed credible," the Atomic Safety
Licensing Board, an arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a
222-page opinion today.

As a result, the board said, it is withholding approval of the project.

The board said it might reconsider its decision if Private Fuel Storage,
or P.F.S., could either persuade the Air Force to reduce the number of
flights over the reservation or show that the concrete and steel casks
where the waste would be stored could withstand an F-16 crash.

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