Utah residents continue to oppose a plan to store 10,000 tons of spent nuclear reactor fuel on Goshute tribal lands in Tooele County.
But they aren't nearly as adamant about storing that same waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, according to a poll released Monday.
The KSL TV Deseret News poll found 52 percent of those questioned strongly or somewhat supported President Bush's decision to permanently store the reactor fuel at Yucca Mountain.
Only 24 percent were strongly or somewhat opposed.
However, a Yucca Mountain waste facility might not be ready for another 10 or 20 years. In the meantime, Utah residents apparently don't want the radioactive waste stored on the Goshute reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
The poll found 63 percent of those questioned were strongly opposed to that idea and another 16 percent were somewhat opposed.
That 79 percent opposition is down from the 84 percent who were opposed last year. The Deseret News poll of 404 Utah residents was conducted March 11-13, and it has a margin of error of 5 percent.
Most disconcerting to nuclear waste opponents is the comparatively high level of support among Utah residents for Yucca Mountain.
"In general, it says to me there is a need for more education (on Yucca Mountain), not only how it will affect the state of Utah but whether it is really the right decision to solve the nation's nuclear waste problem," said Steve Erickson, a Sierra Club lobbyist.
Erickson said public opinion will shift when Utah residents realize the radioactive waste would be shipped through Utah to Nevada.
Utah residents do appear to be worried about the dangers of shipping spent nuclear reactor fuel on railroad routes through the state.
The poll found that 77 percent of those questioned were very or somewhat concerned about the railroad shipment of nuclear waste through Utah, while only 21 percent were not concerned.
Those shipments would happen with both the Goshute temporary waste proposal and the Yucca Mountain proposal.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold hearings this month on a proposal by a consortium of nuclear power utilities, called Private Fuel Storage, to temporarily store the spent reactor fuel on Goshute lands for up to 40 years in anticipation that Yucca Mountain would eventually become the permanent storage site.
Led by Gov. Mike Leavitt _ and with support from Nevada _ Utah officials have fought the PFS proposal, arguing the temporary site with aboveground canisters would become a permanent repository.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
