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Teryl Hunsaker
Tooele County Commission
Teryl Hunsaker served as Chairman of the Tooele County Commission
when the Commission signed an agreement with Private Fuel Storage.
The agreement provides for payments to the county to "mitigate"
the impacts of operating a temporary nuclear waste storage facility
on the reservation lands of the Skull Valley Band. The reservation
lands lie right in the heart of the county.
The interview was conducted by program Producer Ken Verdoia in
the Tooele County Commission chambers.
Ken Verdoia: Can you give me a thumbnail sketch of where
this started and how the county got involved?
Teryl Hunsaker: Well, Ken, I want to back up almost a
little before then and that. I've been on the commission ten years,
but let's drop back to the late 80s when the state of Utah and
the legislators moved the Vitro Tailings out onto the West Desert.
There was much opposition to that from our county residents. They
were not happy with it but it was forced onto us, if you will.
The commissioners then at that time decided that because of what
had happened it would be well if they commercialized on the hazardous
waste industry out on the West Desert.
So they developed 100 square miles, which they called a hazardous
waste zone. This entailed the Vitro Tailings, United States Pollution
Control came along and constructed an incinerator. And then Aptos,
which is a subsidiary of Westinghouse, came along and developed
another incinerator along with a landfill. Then Envirocare came
along and developed a low radioactive landfill. After those entities
were established it then became the position of the county commission
that no more would come into our county. These were all put together
by county ordinances, rules, regulations, very closely supervised,
controlled and it's been financial boom to our county. Eighty-seven
percent of Tooele County is owned by state and federal government
so we don't have any tax base whatsoever. This is developed a
pretty nice tax base for us.
Then as the military came along, we determined that where they
were putting in a incinerator to burn the nerve agent, and by
the way we stored 42 percent of the nations' agents out here, we have
burned 50 percent of it now with no incidents. We're very proud of that
industry and what they have done in cleaning up our nation. We
think we're doing a fantastic job in help cleaning up the problems
that the people have developed through our hazardous waste industry.
For example, on the Wasatch Front, the Huntsman Cancer Center
and the hospitals have more radioactive material there today then
we'll ever store on the West Desert even if Envirocare is permitted
for high levels of radioactive materials. So this has been our
main industry. It's been very lucrative for us.
We cut a contract with United States Army that they also pay
mitigation fee to our county. You had the opportunity of going
down to the Olympic fireworks, that whole complex if you will,
was funded by West Desert mitigation funds and by military mitigation
funds. It's been an asset to out community. In our industries,
including the military and the West Desert, we have 2,500 employees.
Those employees have an average salary of about $40,000 a year.
So it becomes very critical, those people not only live and work
in Tooele County, they live along the Wasatch Front. They contribute
to the economy of the state of Utah. This doesn't include the
vendors that are out there. And so it becomes very important to
us.
Well, to move on to Private Fuel Storage and the storage of spent
rods, Tooele County and the tribe started looking at this program
about ten years ago. This isn't something new. We've been looking
at it, we've been studying it for a good ten years. Now, there's
much opposition to this and it personally offends me. First of
all I want to say that I believe that the tribe is a sovereign
nation. They have a treaty with the United States government.
And on top of that their citizens of my county. And drag that
a little bit farther, I taught a lot of them in school and they're
good people. They got just as much right to a high standard of
living as the rest of us. They have a difficult time bringing
industry into the reservation.
If you go out to the reservation, you can see that we, the white
people if you will, gave them the best land in Tooele County.
[laughs] It's the only land that's barren of jackrabbits, and
I said that a little bit sarcastically, but they have studied
it. They have studied it diligently. We have worked with Private
Fuel Storage. We believe this can be a benefit to the citizens
of Tooele County. We believe it can be a benefit to the tribe.
As we have studied it, diligently, we find that it is safe to
transport and it is safe to store. We have made several trips
back to Calver Cliffs, to the nuclear power plant, and looked
at those facilities and we see no danger in this.
We have signed a very lucrative contract with Private Fuel Storage.
We did that to protect ourselves, if you will. If it's successful,
our citizens will benefit. If it fails we have lost nothing. We
believe that whereas the tribe is an independent nation, that
they will, in the long run, succeed. We do, in fact, believe that
they will have a temporary storage facility in Skull Valley. We
had a meeting a week ago Friday with the folks from Pahrump, Nye
County, they pretty well have the same philosophy that we do,
that Yucca Mountain will be completed. It will become a storage
facility and they also would like to capitalize on the benefits
that come from that.
Not only employment, of course out there they'll have a lot more
employment then we will, but because of the perception, because
we mislead the people, because we the politicians mislead our
citizens. We stir them up. We stir up their emotions and we create
a lot of problems. Because we create those problems, then when
industry comes to our county, rather it be Tooele or Nye County,
there's some hesitation for industry to come in. Consequently
that's why Tooele County instigated, if you will, a mitigation
fee.
Verdoia: Did Tooele County say, "We better go to
PFS and talk to them," or did PFS come to you? How did it
all come about?
Hunsaker: Well, PFS came out here. Now obviously as we
had talked about this years ago, it wasn't PFS, it was other consortiums
and companies which were interested in a storage facility. If
you remember years ago, they attempted to put it down in San Juan
County, and that was blocked. Because our tribe is a little bit
different, I guess one needs to study the importance of our tribe
having a direct treaty from the United States government. That
gives us a little bit more, or gives them, if you will, a little
bit more authority over their own lands. And as they came to us,
there's a lot of work, there's a lot of study that goes into.
There's a lot of apprehension that goes into it. When you say
nuclear power, obviously it causes a lot of fear in a lot of people's
minds.
If you recall, there was an advertisement on the TV comparing
the 6,000 sheep that were supposedly killed with nerve agent out
on the West Desert. You compare that to storage of spent rod and
then you compare that to open detonation, that's nonsense. It's
misleading the people. When we stand up and talk about the probability
of an airplane coming down wrecking, if you will, into this storage
facility, compare that probability with it when it takes off Hill
Air Force Base and the residential area in Clearfield. And so
a lot of these things are said and I don't want to say they're
intentionally said to misguide or mislead the public, but certainly
it gives the public a misconception of what's out there.
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