Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, all seven members of the City Council and Gov. Mike Leavitt have reached common ground on one contentious topic.
In a resolution to be made at the start of Tuesday evening's council meeting, the panel and the mayor will express what Councilman Keith Christensen called "shock" and "dismay" at the possibility of nuclear waste being transported through the capital city, en route to a proposed storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation.
Echoing the Utah governor's opposition, Anderson has told nuclear power plants to "stay out of our city and our state." Drawing applause during his State of the City address last month, the mayor said, "This administration will continue to fight against the transportation and storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah, and will work to build opposition along the entire transportation route."
That opposition has been building, according to council vice chairman Dave Buhler. Tuesday's resolution "expresses our views, and I think it expresses the views of the majority of the citizens of Salt Lake," he said.
The Skull Valley Band of Goshutes began negotiating in 1996 with Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of utility companies, to establish a waste storage site on its reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Dedicated Union Pacific trains would transport the waste, along its routes next to I-80, from Minnesota, Michigan, Alabama, California and other states.
If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants a license to Private Fuel Storage, transport could begin in 2004, according to PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin. The proposed capacity for the Goshute site is 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel.
The next step in the NRC licensing process is the environmental impact statement, followed by public hearings in Salt Lake City, Martin said. The earliest those hearings could take place is this summer.
E-MAIL: durbani@desnews.com