Judge opens way for nuclear waste site
Jul 27 - United Press International
A federal judge has ruled a nuclear waste storage project in Utah can go
forward, throwing out U.S. Interior Department decisions that had killed
the plan.
Judge David M. Ebel said the department's decision to stop plans for
long-term storage of used nuclear reactor fuel on the Skull Valley
Goshute Indian Reservation was "arbitrary and capricious," The Salt Lake
Tribune reported Tuesday.
Ebel told Interior Department decision-makers to reconsider requests by
project proponents, including a consortium of nuclear power companies
called Private Fuel Storage LLC.
Opponents of the waste storage plan were disappointed by Ebel's
decision, they said.
Margene Bullcreek, a Goshute who has led the opposition to the
proposal for a decade, said Ebel's ruling would revive the heated
controversy the plan has generated in the 18,000-acre reservation in
Utah's Tooele County.
"We're still against it," she said. "It's just going to mean another
round" of fighting.
Reactor operators continue to push for a place like Skull Valley to
warehouse their used reactor fuel, a form of high-level nuclear waste
that remains lethally radioactive forever, the Tribune said.
"There's no place to put this waste, and now we have this door opened"
by the Ebel ruling, Bullcreek said.
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