OCR Text |
Show THE STATE Nuke waste to be shipped across Utah? UTAH DIGEST HOUSE PASSES CHILD DAY-CARE REFORM: The Utah House yesterday passed a bill to close a loophofe that has allowed day-care centers that tend children for fewer than four hours to avoid licensing requirements. The bill, which failed last year, passed on a vote of 42-29 and now goes to the Senate for debate. It passed only after Republican lawmakers pushed through an amendment that will require the Department of Human Services to review the rules it imposes on day-care centers in general. Rep. Blake Chard, R-Layton, and others said those rules go too far in imposing curriculum and take away · parents' rights. OPEN-SPACES BILL AMENDED TO FURTHER LEAVITT PLAN: A bill to create· an open-lands commission has been altered to further a proposal by Gov. Mike Leavitt to help local governments preserve open space and agricultural land. Senate Bill 48, sponsored by Sen. Leonard Blackham, RMoroni, was substantially altered Monday in the House Natural Resources Committee at the governor's request. The altered version passed and will now Gov. Mike Leavitt be voted on by the entire House. Brad Barber of the governor's Office of Planning and Budget said the bill would create a commission that would identify surplus lands that state agencies own. In an effort to increase their value, these lands could be sold or exchanged for other lands. An open-space trust fund of up to $1 million the first year would be created, providing either land or money for local governments to use. Leavitt said some of the money for such a fund might come from coal royalties. worker clothing, gloves and tools that have low SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Hearings will be concentrations of radionuclides. conducted in Nevada and Utah next month on A transportation study recently released by alternative proposals for the Nevada Test Site. DOE says of the 30 nuclear generating sites One alternative could result in low-level considered as potential customers for a nuclear waste being shipped through Utah to radioactive-waste disposal program, 18 would the Nevada site. truck their waste through Utah. The remai_ning Left in limbo by a 1992 moratorium on 12 would reach the Nevada Test Site through underground nuclear testing, the Nevada Test southern routes via California and New Mexico. Site's future is uncertain. A new draft The Utah hearing will be March 5 in St. environmental impact statement by the Department of Energy outlines four alternatives George. A number of southwestern Utah residents for the compound north of Las Vegas: have argued for outright closure of the Nevada • Continue current operations to maintain site. readiness in case nuclear weapons testing is DOE officials have said that is not their first resumed by presidential order. choice. • Discontinue all operations except Claudia Peterson of St. George, said, "They monitoring of human and environmental health (DOE officials) are just looking for some way to and maintaining security. • Expand uses of the site for military training, get around the problem that they can't justify their massive federal budget anymore because defense-related research, environmental they can't justify the need for weapons .. restoration, solar-power studies and disposal of "The consensus of the communities in this low-level mixed waste collected from the area, I feel, remains that they should shut it nation's nuclear reactors. down, clean it up and get rid of it," she said. • Returning uncontaminated sections of the DOE's study maintains that continued or off-limits site to the public domain for expanded operations pose only minor health and recreation and education, discontinuing all safety risks to humans or the environment. The defense-related work. study contends that human health risks under "The department proposes to continue the expanded-use scenario would be dominated managing the Nevada Test Site and its resources in a manner than meets evolving DOE by occupational injuries and fatalities caused by construction, rather than radiation exposure. missions," Terry Vaeth, acting manager of the According to the study, the chance of a single test site, said in a prepared statement cancer fatality occurring in the entire work accompanying the study's release. force di.J.ring 10 years is one in eight, while the Accepting low-level waste from off-site locations is part of the expanded-use alternative risk of a cancer fatality off-site as a result of radioactive accident is one in 4 million. under consideration. Such materials are usually HUNAN Ready to take the plunge? C H INESE RESTAU RANT 11:30 .. 9:00p.m. Monday .. Saturday 501 South Main Cedar City 586.. 8952 I . Let Castro's break your fall. Main cc~ ~CC(J,. Cedar75.North City, U t 84720 Jewelers • Gemologists (801) 586-2422 |