Dumping Nuclear Waste on Native Americans

Below is an AP story. Here is the opposition they forgot to mention.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorized a license on Friday for a private company to build a nuclear waste storage plant on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian
Reservation in Utah, rejecting the state's argument that the site was too dangerous.

Utah officials vowed to fight the decision, with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
immediately declaring that he would challenge it in the courts.

Representatives of the impoverished Goshute band, who have eagerly
courted the dump as a boon to their economy, did not immediately
respond to a call or e-mail seeking comment.

A group of utilities, Private Fuel Storage, wants to store 44,000 tons
of spent nuclear fuel at the site, about 50 miles southwest of Salt
Lake City.

The plant would be temporary, lasting until the opening of a national
nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Utah officials have argued that the temporary plant would be too close
to Salt Lake City and that there is too great a risk that a jet
fighter from nearby Hill Air Force Base would crash into the storage
casks.

But in a meeting that lasted about two minutes, commissioners
dismissed the argument on Friday, affirming an earlier ruling that the
waste containers would not release an unacceptable amount of radiation
if a jet crashed into them. Then the panel voted, 3 to 1, to authorize
its staff to issue the license.

Governor Huntsman said in a statement that he was "deeply
disappointed" in the commission's decision.

"This is a battle that will take several years to fight to
completion," he said, "but it is also a battle that I intend to win."

The state's senior senator, Orrin G. Hatch, like the governor a
Republican, said the plan was "dead on arrival."

"This is a reckless, dangerous proposal," Mr. Hatch said, "and I am
pulling out all the stops to make sure this waste never makes a home
in Utah."

Leaders of the Utah Congressional delegation asked Interior Secretary
Gale A. Norton to help block the plan, which still requires permits
from two agencies within her department: the Bureau of Indian Affairs
and the Bureau of Land Management.