The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska offered to host a proposed low-level radioactive waste site as a way of resolving the state's liability in a long-running dispute with other states.

The tribe would have acquired trust land for the project and sought a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In exchange for hosting the site, the tribe would have accepted $1 million a year for 30 years, chairman Mark Peniska told The Lincoln Journal Star.

Instead, Gov. Mike Johanns (R) settled by agreeing to pay $140.5 million to a regional compact of states that previously agreed to send the waste to Nebraska. The tribe was fighting the site in federal court.

Peniska said the tribe is still interested in developing a low-level repository.

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Tribe had offered land for nuke waste facility (The Lincoln Journal Star 8/11)