News Coverage
Utah tribe may store spent nuclear rods
Indians' sovereignty could play major role
Published February 16, 2005
WASHINGTON - An hour's drive from Salt Lake City, between Utah's Cedar and Stansbury mountain ranges, there lies a lonely, arid valley marked by perhaps three paved roads and the homes of a few American Indian families.
Skull Valley - a longtime dumping ground for hazardous waste, low-level radioactive debris and the byproducts of biological and chemical weapons testing - is a literal and figurative wasteland.
But in a matter of weeks, it could be on its way to becoming a gold mine for some, or further cursed for others.
This month, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission may decide whether a private company can move forward with its plan to put high-level nuclear waste in that part of the valley home to the Skull Valley band of Goshute Indians.
The decision comes when a congressionally approved dump in Nevada's Yucca Mountain is moving slowly and officials running the nation's nuclear reactors are clamoring for a place to put their spent fuel rods.
If the NRC gives its approval and if the opening of the federal dump in Nevada continues to stall, then the Skull Valley reservation could become the first place in the nation - aside from nuclear reactors - to store some of the most toxic waste known to man.
An anti-nuclear waste sign is posted along the road leading to the Skull Valley band of Goshute Indians' reservation, which could become the first place in the nation - aside from nuclear reactors - to store high-level nuclear waste. It would be a marriage of convenience between the nuclear industry and an Indian tribe.
Because tribes have the right of sovereignty, the consortium of eight utilities wanting to build the dump can bypass state and local regulations, as well as the politics that typically accompany them. For the Goshutes, the dump would mean an economic windfall - much as gaming has enriched tribes in California and elsewhere.
"It was kind of a natural match between people looking for a place to store nuclear waste and people looking for economic development," said Rod McCullum, a senior project manager with the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear power industry.
But as with gaming, the venture comes with concerns - among them, whether it amounts to an abuse of Indian land and people. About one-third of the tribal members want the dump, about one-third don't, and a third aren't sure, according to observers.
"Private companies saw that many of our tribes were vulnerable . . . socially and economically," said Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, which objects to the dump. "They took advantage with promises that you can get rich. I think these companies are looking for environmental loopholes as well, (because) Indian lands are subject to federal regulations, but not to state ones."
No government entity has been successful in opening a depository for the depleted fuel rods from the nation's 103 nuclear power plants - rods that stay lethal for as long as 10,000 years.
The reservation is in a valley that has long been a dumping ground for hazardous waste, low-level radioactive debris and byproducts of biological and chemical weapons testing. Congress was supposed to have found a resting place for the debris by 1998. But although Congress in 2002 approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain for such a depository, lawsuits, Nevada's opposition and Congress' unwillingness to fund the dump mean it probably won't open in 2010 as scheduled.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has been renewing licenses for nuclear power plants at a record rate. In the past four years, the NRC has granted 20-year extensions to 26 nuclear reactors, while extensions are pending for 18 more.
"The relicensing . . . drives more interest in disposal (sites), because anyone who wants to move forward with nuclear energy realizes we have to take care of the waste," said McCullum, who adds that power plants are running out of space to store their spent fuel rods.
Private Fuel Storage - the consortium of utilities - would lease 500 acres in the northwest corner of the Goshutes' 18,000-acre reservation. As early as 2007, the utilities would start storing up to 44,000 tons of nuclear waste in concrete and steel silos that would sit on concrete pads.
After 40 years, the lease requires that the waste be moved to a permanent resting place, presumably Yucca Mountain.
While Private Fuel Storage and the Goshutes won't disclose the terms of the lease, some estimate that the band would earn tens of millions of dollars a year.
This month, the NRC's Atomic Safety Licensing Board is expected to make a recommendation on the plan to NRC commissioners, who would then decide whether to grant a license for the dump.
"In the case of the Skull Valley Band, the United States is dealing with a true direct democracy," said Scott York, general counsel for the Goshute members who support the dump. "No entity under state control could create such a facility."
Attorneys for the Goshutes who oppose the dump could not be reached.
On the reservation sits a store, a gas station, a tribal meeting center and a few homes - some in good repair, others uninhabitable.
The band claims about 125 members, but perhaps only 25 people remain on the reservation, others having scattered to neighboring towns to take jobs or educate their children.
It's been hard for the tribe to create economic ventures largely because of the surroundings: Ten miles away sits an old Army testing zone for chemical and biological weapons; to the east is one of the world's largest nerve gas incinerators; and to the west are a hazardous waste landfill and a depository for low-level radioactive waste.
"They're in danger of losing their heritage, losing their native language, and losing any memory of their culture," said Sue Martin, a spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage. "One of the things they've dreamed of (was to) create something that will not only produce income, but help them build housing and offer health care."
Richard Wiles, senior vice president with the Environmental Working Group, which opposes the dump, said that if the Goshutes accept nuclear waste for as long as four decades, they may find it difficult to relocate it.
"What's the incentive for anyone to want to move it?" Wiles asked. "To all the cities in the East and West that have nuclear waste, Goshute sounds as good as Yucca. It could be stuck there for a long time."