Huntsman smacks a double

The rap on Gov. Jon Huntsman has long been that while he has oodles of political capital in the bank, he's not very agressive about spending it.

But last week, he spent some. We think he did exactly the right thing.

First, after hemming and hawing about whether he had the power to stop Italian radioactive waste from being disposed of in Utah, Huntsman on Wednesday sided strongly with Utahns who want to stop Utah-based EnergySolutions -- formerly Envirocare -- from accepting radioactive waste from Italian nuclear power plants. EnergySolutions would eventually store 1,600 tons of the Italian waste west of Tooele at the company's existing low-level radioactive materials dump site.

"As I have always emphatically declared," Huntsman said in a statement, "Utah should not be the world's dumping ground." Utah is a partner in the Northwest Interstate Low-Level Waste Compact, and Huntsman said the state will vote "no" on any proposals to allow foreign waste to be dumped in Utah.

That, according to the governor's legal advisers, should prevent any of the Italian waste from coming to the Beehive State -- "should" being the critical word, because when the lawyers get involved, whether EnergySolutions' or the state's, it's difficult to say for sure how this will shake out.

Moreover, Rep. Jim Matheson, who represents Utah's 2nd Congressional District, has sponsored federal legislation to outlaw the acceptance of foreign radioactive waste. This is what Huntsman was arguing before he jumped in with both feet: that the federal government should make it easy for everyone and ban the importation of all radioactive waste from other countries. And well it should. Huntsman and Matheson are exactly right on this topic: Utah shouldn't be accepting any radioactive waste from overseas.

But Huntsman didn't stop there. Also last week, he put the kibosh on a proposed hydroelectric plant above Bear Lake. He ordered the Division of State Parks and Recreation to halt negotiations regarding an easement required by Symbiotics LLC to pump water out of Bear Lake each night to store in a reservoir in Hook Canyon. The water would then be released back into Bear Lake each day to generate electricity.

Huntsman's advisers told him the lake level would fall and rise by about three inches each day, threatening to cloud the lake's clarity and affect its unique aqua-blue color.

We agree with Huntsman's decision: Bear Lake is too beautiful to risk.