SALT LAKE CITY — Outside the House chamber, they waited patiently for representatives to rush out and talk to them between votes.
"This is a really personal issue to me," said Ava Curtis, who described family members who developed cancers.
Madi Sudweeks had a similar story.
"My grandmother had cancer, my great uncles had cancer. They’re all downwinders and so I'm really concerned about continuing nuclear development and what that means for my future, for my nephews’ future and the future of the state," Sudweeks said.
Members of the Healthy Environmental Alliance for Utah and the Sierra Club showed up on Monday to lobby lawmakers against bills dramatically expanding nuclear power in the state. It has been a top priority of Governor Spencer Cox and House and Senate leadership.
The House recently voted unanimously to support House Bill 249 creating a consortium to explore where small-scale nuclear power plants could operate. The bill is now in the Senate.
"There are communities that as they see the last utilization of coal, are thinking about we already have the transmission lines, distribution systems, it might make sense for us to have nuclear," said Sen. Ann Millner, R-Ogden, the Senate sponsor of the bill. "This is to give us a thorough study to think about steps to do that. We want to do it right in Utah."
But some environmental groups do have concerns about uranium extraction and how to handle waste.
"There’s still a lot of uncleaned up mines on Navajo Nation, the only uranium mill in the U.S. is located in Utah, about five miles from Ute Mountain Ute land," said Curtis.
Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, has introduced Senate Bill 216, dealing with nuclear waste capacity. Rep. Bridger Bolinder, R-Grantsville, has filed House Bill 254 on the definition of radioactive waste.
"Nuclear is part of our future, it will be part of our future," Sen. McKell said Monday. "We’re going to develop that here. To do that, over time, we’re going to have to expand our capacity."
HEAL Utah's Carmen ValDez said she is concerned the bills are opening the door to store hotter radioactive waste in Utah.
"We are concerned that this so-called clean energy is being proposed as clean energy when it’s heavily carbon intensive when it comes to extract the ore, transport the ore, process the ore into nuclear fuel and then find a place to store that radioactive waste," ValDez said.
EnergySolutions, which handles waste disposal, told FOX 13 News on Monday that it "is supportive of the initiative to develop safe nuclear power generation in Utah."
Utah political leaders have pushed an "all of the above" approach to energy, including fossil fuels, renewable sources and nuclear power. But state leaders have also said demand is increasing for data centers and population growth.
"We continue to do renewables like sun and wind, etc., but they aren’t base loads," said Sen. Millner. "So we’ve got to be looking for clean energy sources like geothermal and nuclear that are also base loads."
