Plans to develop a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Skull Valley, Utah, USA, have been dealt a blow by a number of recent Department of the Interior decisions.
The Bureau of Land Management has rejected a right-of-way request from Private Fuel Storage (PFS), the company that is leading the development. The move blocks the transport of spent fuel across public lands managed by the department to the Goshute reservation, where the facility is to be built. In a second decision the bureau also denied permission to build an intermodal transfer facility on public land.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, also part of the Department of the Interior, rejected the proposed lease that would have secured Goshutes land for PFS.