Utah Tribe Divided Over Nuclear Waste

A state sign, riddled by shotgun blasts, stands along the highway leading to the Goshute Indian Tribe reservation in Skull Valley, Utah, Wednesday, May 3, 2006. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac) (Douglas C. Pizac - AP)

Dump opponents do have one significant victory. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, got Congress to create a 100,000-acre wilderness near the Goshute reservation with a finger of protected land crossing _ and essentially blocking _ a proposed right of way for a rail spur to bring the waste to the dump. Parkyn says he will just bring the waste the last 26 miles by truck.

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Once, more than 20,000 Goshutes roamed Utah and Nevada. Now there are only about 500, including the 118 belonging to the Skull Valley Band, according to Bear.

Fewer than two dozen, including children, still live in the cluster of homes and trailers a few hundreds yards off the single highway that cuts through the reservation. Most of the households are below the national poverty level.

At the tribe's only commercial building, the "Pony Express Store" and gas station, the sign is missing several letters. The clerk talks on the phone with little suggestion any customers will be arriving soon.

Some of the economic benefits from the proposed dump already are visible. Amid the old, dilapidated houses are a half-dozen new modular homes _ some still waiting to be put on foundations _ thanks to money from the utilities. Bear lives in one; a second belongs to his brother; a third belongs to the vice chair of the tribe's executive council, also a strong supporter of the waste dump.

Two of Bear's neighbors and sharpest critics _ Margene Bullcreek and Sammie Blackbear _ have not been offered new homes, says a lawyer representing Bullcreek. Blackbear lives in a small trailer just across the road from the new homes.

"It's entirely environmental racism," says Bullcreek, a 59-year-old grandmother. "You have large corporations wanting to put the nuclear waste that nobody wants in their back yards on our land."

Bullcreek and other critics of the project contend that tribal members never formally approved the dump and that the majority oppose it. But Bear maintains that the tribe approved the waste project in 1996, before the BIA approved it in March 1997 in a decision that itself has been questioned by dump opponents. A local BIA superintendent, David Allison, approved the lease only three days after receiving the final document.

Allison, now retired, defends his decision and says there were months of discussions as the lease was being developed. "Unquestionably it's to the benefit of the tribe," he said in a telephone interview.

He acknowledged the issue is "a very political hot potato" and added, "I've even been threatened over this thing."

Anger over the waste dump has spilled over to a bitter dispute over tribal leadership. Bear's chairmanship expired in 2004, but Bullcreek says he has skirted new elections by repeatedly claiming the lack of a quorum before everyone has arrived at meetings.