Maybe in my backyard, says counties, tribes.

• Position: Nuclear waste storage sites

Hoping for an economic development windfall, three countries and 14 Indian tribes have volunteered to study the feasibility of locating a temporary nuclear waste storage site on their land.

All face opposition from environmental groups, who fear radioactive contamination, threats to people's health and transportation accidents. Governors and state legislatures, too, have been at best only lukewarm in their support, worried that a nuclear facility would impede economic development rather than promote it.

As of mid-March, the U.S. Department of Energy had awarded two counties and five tribes grants of $100,000 each to study the feasibility of hosting a "monitored retrievable storage" (MRS) facility. The money was awarded to the Prairie Island Indian Community (Minn.); Grant County, N.D.; the Mescalero Apache Tribe (N.M.); the Sac and Fox Nation and the Chickasaw Indian Nation, both in Oklahoma; the Yakima Indian Nation (Wash.); and Fremont County, Wyo.

The Sac and Fox and Chickasaw nations later decided not accept their grants. Several other tribes and local governments have applications pending with DOE, and others may apply before the June 30 deadline.

The volunteers are using the money to support public information programs about the temporary site and to determine whether local citizens, tribal members, state legislators and governors are interested in negotiating with the federal government for money for roads and schools, for example in exchange for hosting the site.

DOE is obligated by contract with nuclear utilities to begin accepting spent fuel from nuclear power plants on Jan. 30, 1998. But the agency estimates that it can't open a permanent repository until 2010 at the earliest. The department currently is investigating whether Yucca Mountain, Nev., would be a suitable site for a permanent repository.

As a stopgap, Congress authorized the MRS for temporary storage of some of the spent fuel from decommissioned reactors and...