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Skull Valley Goshutes
MARGENE BULLCREEK FROM THE GOSHUTE TRIBE SPEAKS OUT AGAINST NUCLEAR WASTE SITES

"Everything changes when you're involved in things politically, unless you're really solid and you know what your goals are. But traditionally, I could always step back on who I am as Indigenous person and things we believe."

– Margene Bullcreek

I’m Margene Bullcreek and I’m from Skull Valley, located about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City. My mission started about 14 years ago with the Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) Project. It has to do with the storage of high level nuclear waste. When the Department of Energy (DOE) first introduced MRS, its mission was to establish a storage site either on an Indian tribe or a state or a business, whoever would be interested in hosting this site. They had applications for people who wanted to study it. Our tribe, the Goshute tribe, filed their application and was accepted. Our tribal council went to different countries -- Japan, France, Brazil, Europe -- and came back saying how safe it was.

When this MRS came on board, I said I couldn’t let this happen. This is more than tribal politics, this has to do with who we are as indigenous people, as a reservation, as a tribe. Then the negotiator’s office in Washington, DC shut down, and I thought this was good. But then another organization (Northern States Power), which is now Xcel Energy, led an organization called Private Fuel Storage (PFS). Private Fuel Storage is the name of the organization dealing with the spent fuel from 11 utility companies. Forty thousand-storage casks were supposed to come across America and across Indian land to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The concern of people who oppose the waste is the transportation routes – this would be affecting the states it would be traveling through.

PFS started negotiations with the Mescalero tribe to store high-level nuclear waste on their reservation – but it was denied by their tribal members in a vote. In the meanwhile, our tribal officials were saying we’ve studied this program, we feel it’s safe. We can benefit from it. We can have economic development, homes, jobs, employment, all the things that we need for the reservation, and we can get millions of dollars from this project. So PFS filed an application license before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1997. PFS was going to be a temporary site for this high level nuclear waste on its way to Yucca Mountain, a temporary site where we were going to store the waste for forty years.

That same year we formed an organization called Ohngo Guadadeh Devia, which is a Shoshone word meaning “a timber setting community.” We based our organization on who we were as Native Americans. The sacredness and tradition, our cultures that have been passed down from our creation stories, these are important to who we are as indigenous people. This is something that our parents instill in us to make sure that we have a foundation to stand on. One of the reasons why we opposed this is because of the future generations. I wanted to stand up for them, because I didn’t want someone to say, “Why didn’t anyone speak up for us?” No matter how safe they said it was, I never felt it was safe.

With PFS and the council saying they wanted this for economic reasons, it sounded good to the people. I said I am going to fight this politically or traditionally. Politically, I didn’t think we have any standing, because people change. Everything changes when you’re involved in things politically, unless you’re really solid and you know what your goals are. But traditionally, I could always step back on who I am as an indigenous person and things we believe. Like how creation stories were told to my family by my father, that was passed on to him. And how we treat Mother Earth and live in harmony with our animals. We believe in our water and clean air, our eagles, and the sacred ceremonies. The thought of high level nuclear waste coming on to our reservation and possibly contaminating us by some accidental release. We were told this was purely safe and nothing could happen, no terrorist attacks or anything like that. We went ahead and opposed this anyway. We had a lot support from other indigenous networks.

We are located about 70 miles outside of Salt Lake City. We have five other hazardous waste sites surrounding us. We battled PFS for fourteen years, and throughout the years we had the support of many indigenous organizations. I am proud to say that I am glad we had their support. Recently, the Secretary of the Interior Dick Kempthorne turned PFS down, because who we are as indigenous people, because of our homeland, and how this would be affecting us negatively. Hooray! PFS didn’t happen, even though our council has been pursuing it urgently. We and other people had been telling them that this is not safe it’s not good for us. We are indigenous people. We should respect our land, this small land the government has left us. We should protect it.

CHRONOLOGY

December 1987 – President Reagan signs the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act that establishes the Office of Nuclear Waste Negotiator. The Negotiator is to “attempt to find a State or Indian tribe willing to host a repository or monitored retrievable storage facility.”

1991-1992 – 6 Tribes (including Mescalero Apache and Goshutes) and one county receive $100,000 grants (and in some cases $200,000 grants) to study being an MRS site.

February 15, 1994 – Northern States Power (NSP) and the Mescalero President sign an Agreement to form a joint venture to develop a temporary spent fuel storage facility.

January 1995 – Nuclear Waste Negotiator office closed.

January 31, 1995 – Mescalero tribal members vote against the storage facility by 490-362.

March 9, 1995 – Mescalero tribal members vote in favor of storage facility by 593-372.

April 18, 1996 – Mescaleros and NSP terminate their agreement.

December 27, 1996 – NSP and Goshutes sign agreement for a spent fuel storage facility.

June 1997 – NSP license application for Private Fuel Storage (PFS) submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

January 6, 2006 – President Bush signs Public Law 109-163, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. Section 384 of this Act designated certain lands as wilderness, to be known as the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area, and added these lands to the National Wilderness Preservation System. The Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area includes lands described in PFS's application seeking a right-of-way for a rail line. The effect of this wilderness designation is to preclude the BLM's issuance of a right-of-way grant authorizing a rail line through those lands designated as the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area.

February 21, 2006 – PFS receives license from the NRC.

September 7, 2006 – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) announced final decisions that effectively prevent Private Fuel Storage’s (PFS) plan to store high-level nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. The BLM issued its decision to deny PFS a right-of-way to transfer and transport nuclear waste to the Skull Valley Goshute reservation. At the same time, the BIA issued their decision to "disapprove the proposed lease" of tribal lands to be used for the PFS facility.

Private Fuel Storage, LLC
Private Fuel Storage, LLC, is a consortium formed by eight large electric utility companies for the purpose of developing and managing a safe, clean, temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods. The equity members of the consortium are sharing in the cost of development and operation and will also share in any profits generated when the facility is in operation.
PFS members are:

• Xcel Energy
• Genoa Fuel Tech
• American Electric Power
• Southern California Edison
• Southern Nuclear Company
• First Energy
• Entergy
• Florida Power and Light