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Utah Tribe Divided Over Nuclear Waste
A suit challenging Bear's leadership and the BIA lease approval was dismissed by a federal court in Salt Lake City.
Three years ago, Blackbear and two other nuclear dump opponents assumed leadership of the tribal council and began using its funds. The BIA never recognized them and they were arrested for theft and received probation.
  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) 
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Last year Bear faced embezzlement charges and agreed to return $31,500 to the tribe. He also pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion. "We don't believe the (tribal) chairmanship is a job," he said, explaining why he did not pay taxes on his income as tribal leader. "Apparently the feds don't feel that way."
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The radioactive spent fuel rods are now kept in pools of water or in concrete containers at power plants. At Skull Valley, they will be kept in steel canisters inside concrete enclosures resting atop a concrete slab.
A private security force will be at the site with double fences cordoning off the inner 100 acres where the waste will be kept. Consortium officials say the facility will comply fully with NRC security requirements.
Tooele County, Utah, which surrounds the reservation, is anything but pristine.
A few miles to the east, over the Stansbury Mountain range, the government is storing and burning nerve gas and other chemical agents. To the south is the Dugway Proving Ground, where the government uses chemical and biological agents in tests. Toward the northwest are private landfills holding hazardous, toxic and low-level radioactive waste. Not far away, on the Great Salt Lake, is a magnesium plant once ranked by the Environmental Protection Agency as the nation's No. 1 toxic polluter.
Skull Valley itself has long been viewed as a bit foreboding. In the late 19th century, the state located its only leper colony there.
Bullcreek, nonetheless, argues that becoming the country's storehouse for nuclear waste _ "This poison," she calls it _ is contrary to Goshute tradition. "It will destroy the harmony we have, the tranquility that we have in our valley."
Bear scoffs at the dissent.
"We've got to live today," he says. "We can't go back and live like the old days. You can't feed your children, you can't feed your family that way."
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On the Net:
Skull Valley Goshutes: http:/
Private Fuel Storage LLC: http:/
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http:/
Public Citizen: http:/