Private Fuel Storage LLC (PFS) was a nuclear power industry consortium organized to manage spent nuclear fuel based in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The plan was to store it above-ground in dry casks on the Goshute's Skull Valley Indian Reservation, Tooele County, Utah. It was withdrawn in 2012.
Project history DOE ownership The Department of Energy took responsibility for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA). A temporary Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) program was expected to be used alongside a geological storage (permanent) program. Eventually the latter focused on Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, and MRS was evaluated on many different sites. Department of Energy (DOE) was told to take title to the SNF no later than 1998. By 1987 DOE planned to build the facility near Oak Ridge, Tennessee on federal land as government nuclear research projects meant skilled personnel and infrastructure were already in place. Opposition to the Oak Ridge location led to its prohibition in a 1987 amendment to the NWPA.
Nuclear Waste Negotiator This 1987 amendment also created the Office of the United States Nuclear Waste Negotiator (ONWN), which was active in the early 1990s after its first negotiator, David Leroy, was appointed in 1991. Leroy described the government as "seek[ing] volunteers" of counties and tribes willing to host a MRS. After rounds of grants and applications to the counties and tribes, the willing sites was reduced to Indian reservations that had the tribal sovereignty to host spent fuel, as counties were described by Leroy as having "angry mobs" opposed to it. This was considered "particularly reprehensible from an ethical standpoint because of the long and often destructive history of Indian involvement in U.S. nuclear programs." By March 1993 only four tribes remained interested in the project, and by August 1993 two were in negotiations: the Mescalero tribe's Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in New Mexico and the Goshute tribe's Skull Valley Indian Reservation in Utah. The ONWN was defunded in late 1993 and expired in 1995.
The Skull Valley band applied for grants created by the 1987 program and by 1990. The first round of grants, approximately $100,000, funded the band executive committee's travel to Sacramento, California's Rancho Seco nuclear plant, Washington state's Hanford Site, Florida Power & Light nuclear facilities, and Virginia's Surry Nuclear Power Plant. The second phase of grants, approximately $200,000, sent the committee to Japan's Fugen nuclear plant and Tōkai reprocessing facility, France's La Hague reprocessing facility, UK's Sellafield power/reprocessing/storage facility, and Sweden's Clab storage facility.
Private Fuel Storage, LLC creation After ONWN wound down, MRS efforts were picked up by a private consortium, Private Fuel Storage, LLC, led by Xcel Energy (via Northern States Power Company's Jim Howard and the "locally visible and vocal" engineer, Scott Northard) to store on of Mescalero land in New Mexico, called the Mescalero Utility Fuel Storage Initiative. This was controversial and opposed by many in the tribe as well as New Mexico's senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete V. Domenici. The Mescalero tribe voted against the $250 million deal in 1995, then proceeded into a second referendum and accusations of coercion and outside involvement, though the vote supposedly ended in PFS's favor, leading Tom Udall (then the New Mexico Attorney General) to state "It appears to me that the tribal leadership has strong-armed members to get this result", with allegations of job losses to opponents, intimidation through killing horses and dogs of a tribe member, and assaulting children. The agreement had a minority of tribal members on its board (4 from the tribe, 5 from PFS), and there was a possibility for the transfer the SNF title to the tribe. The tribe broke off negotiations in 1996.
Negotiations with the Goshute tribe were ongoing and became primary. Xcel/Northern claimed 33 companies were involved, but by 1995 there were only 10 companies, and when Private Fuel Storage was organized in 1996 the number was reduced to eight, being Xcel/Northern, Southern Nuclear, Genoa FuelTech, Southern California Edison, Entergy (via ConEd), American Electric Power (via Indiana-Michigan Power), Florida Power and Light, and FirstEnergy. Boston Edison withdrew in 1997 after citizen objections, and Illinois Power sold its share to Florida Power in 2000. Wisconsin Electric and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) also withdrew. General Public Utilities had merged with Xcel Energy.
The Private Fuel Storage project would have stored approximately of spent fuel in 4000 Holtec International dry casks on of Goshute land. The fuel would have come from over 100 power plants in a project worth approximately $3 billion and was technically temporary storage.
Some of the Goshutes were in favor of the project for the economic boost, including Danny Quintana, a non-Indian attorney representing the tribe in the project, who described the tribe as "very astute in terms of business deals" in 1995. It was also opposed by others in the tribe and by many outside groups, such as Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, and House Representatives Rob Bishop, Chris Cannon, James V. Hansen, Jim Matheson, Utah governors Mike Leavitt (who famously said "over my dead body" to the proposal) and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., and Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson. The conflict and concerns reached the front page of the New York Times in 1998.
Legal protection under the Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, even for private operation on Indian lands, was settled with 1999's El Paso Natural Gas Co. v. Neztsosie, which noted Price-Anderson's "unmistakable preference for a federal forum". Still, Price-Anderson had many unanswered questions and grey areas for the project.
Leon Bear and tribal disputes Leon D. Bear (), identified as chairman of the Goshutes by PFS, had pushed for the project, describing it as appropriate given the surrounding toxic sites that already existed. Mary Allen, a Goshute executive committee member, doubted the tribe could handle it, as did tribe member Margene Bullcreek, who said about $300,000 had been granted to the tribe by 1995.
Bear shaped tribal decisions by attaching tribal money to them, in contrast to the previously equal distribution of funds. For instance, the tribe's 1998 Christmas bonuses were tied to acceptance of the PFS project and would result in $6000 bonuses for supporters and $400 bonuses for those against PFS. In 2000 a tribe member stated "everyone who supports the facility has a new truck—if you don't support Leon, you don't have anything", showing the lack of voice and access to the tribe and the shaping of the tribe's identity through the distorted narrative.
In April 1999 the tribe passed a resolution stating that all tribal documents are confidential and proprietary to "protect the Band from outsiders". After this point the committee attendance (sign-in) sheet was a legal agreement, binding members to confidentiality. Some members refused to sign such a document.
In March 1999, eighteen tribe members including Sammy Blackbear () and Margene Bullcreek sued BIA over the legality of the 1997 lease agreement, which they BIA approved (per the Indian Long-Term Leasing Act) in three days, an unusually prompt event. The Blackbear/Bullcreek suit was dismissed in February 2000 without prejudice (and upheld in an April 2000 appeal) as it had not met a ripeness threshold. They proceeded to appeal BIA's approval of the lease agreement in September 2000 and were joined by other parties including the Ohngo Gaudedah Devia Awareness (OGDA or OGD) and the State of Utah. This was then filed as a lawsuit on 2 May 2001, over the legality of the 1997 lease agreement, stating the "Bear regime" (Leon and his uncle Lawrence) had been recalled in 1994 over the spent fuel storage, and the Blackbears had been elected. BIA continued to support the Bear leadership, which continued to support the PFS project. Bullcreek indicated Bear had begun to receive payments from PFS in 1996, then signed the lease and received BIA approval. Blackbear alleged that Leon Bear had made "extraordinary purchases" for personal use and also did not allocate PFS project money to the tribe.
The following day, as part of a NRC ASLPB investigation, Leon Bear and John Donnell (PFS project member working for Stone & Webster) were deposed. The transcript was then released on 17 May 2001 in redacted form after a protective order was granted. Bear noted there were 112 people enrolled in the tribe, and "about 15" lived on the reservation. No members of the tribe were employed at Tekoi, compared with several in 1995. Donnell indicated he believed Bear to be the chairman of the tribe but did not verify it. He recalled being at a General Council meeting of the tribe where Bullcreek "challenged Leon's role in leadership". Bear was the tribal secretary in 1990–1991; he was elected as chair in November 1995 and again in November 2000; his uncle, Lawrence Bear, was the previous chair. Bear presented the executed lease with PFS to the council.
In Utah and OGD's complaints surrounding environmental justice issues under Pres. Clinton's Executive Order 12898, in 2002 the licensing board ordered the Skull Valley Band to account for lease revenues and distribution to the Band, defining OGD as a minority subgroup. On behalf of the Band, attorney Tim Vollmann contended this violated tribal sovereignty and was intervening in "internal tribal governmental matters", also noting Utah's FOIA request to the DOI for the lease details was filled, with compensation amounts redacted as confidential proprietary information. While discussing the accusations of embezzlement, Vollmann noted the tribal leaders "are currently cooperating with a pending federal law enforcement investigation", but stated that wasn't under the ASLPB's purview. Leon Bear stated that disclosing revenues, including from PFS, and the allocation to members, "would violate tribal law and custom."
Leon Bear was criminally indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2003 on two counts of thefts from Indian Tribal Organizations, one count of theft of programs receiving federal funds, over conversion and embezzlement of the Goshute funds: nearly $130,000 from an economic development office and over $25,000 by double-dipping travel stipends. He was also charged with three counts of falsifying tax returns (from 2000 to 2002), which required enforcing an IRS summons. In an unrelated case, Bear and tribal businesses, Starlike Properties Inc. and Diversified Acquisition Star LLC, were also under investigation for tax fraud from a Japanese Yen currency put option in 1998.
In 2005, Bear pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was required to pay $31,000 to the tribe account and $13,000 in federal taxes.
Sammy Blackbear, an attorney, and two other tribe members were charged with similar counts of theft after a soft coup in 2001 where they withdrew over $45,000 in tribal funds and transferred over $400,000 in funds to the falsified new tribal organization (with authorization from the Henry Clayton, the non-recognized Nato Indian nation's self-described "residing judge of the First Federal District Court"), attempted to get $250,000 at a second branch, and attempted to withdraw $385,000 from another bank. In 2005, Sammy Blackbear pleaded guilty to the misuse of $1000 in tribal funds.
After the Bear chaos, the tribe filed for the record to be reopened in January 2004, but the NRC chose not to intervene, stating the "concerns are very serious, but they belong in another forum, not an NRC licensing proceeding."