LUBBOCK, Texas — The federal government plans to spend $80 million to assess whether its hottest nuclear waste can be stored in 3-mile-deep holes, a project that could provide an alternative strategy to a Nevada repository plan that was halted in 2010.

The five-year borehole project was tentatively slated to start later this year on state-owned land in rural North Dakota, but it has already been met with opposition from state and local leaders who want more time to review whether the plan poses any public danger.

‘‘It should be a statewide decision,’’ said Jeff Zent, spokesman for Governor Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota, adding that a resolution from state legislators is a possibility.

The Department of Energy wants to conduct its work just south of the Canadian border on 20 acres near Rugby, N.D. — in part because it’s in a rural area not prone to earthquakes — but is prepared to look elsewhere if a deal cannot be reached.

Some sites in West Texas and New Mexico have expressed interest in becoming interim sites for above-ground nuclear waste storage, but it’s not clear if they would be considered for borehole technology.

Project leaders say the research will require months of drilling deep into the earth but will not involve any nuclear waste. Instead, dummy canisters without radioactive material would be used in the project’s third and final phase.

Associated Press