Bill Bradford traded lifestyles when he moved from the Bay area to Tooele two years ago.
Life shadowed by the possibility of earthquakes and the security threat posed by the top-secret technology hidden in the Silicon Valley had become too much to bear.In Tooele, Bradford's new house and new life are located downwind from the aging stockpile of chemical weapons stored at the Tooele Army Depot. Every day, Bradford breathes air that the Environmental Protection Agency says is more polluted with toxic chemicals than the air in any other county in the nation.
But like a majority of locals, Bradford - proprietor of the Fancy Fins Pet Store on Main Street - doesn't lose sleep over the threat of a nerve gas leak or chemical pollution or a hazardous waste spill.
"I came to the conclusion I didn't move into a worse place," said the former electrical engineer, whose new career choice is a giant step out of the rat race. "I moved from a high-risk area. I love this area. I'd never move back.
"Maybe ignorance is bliss."
In this place, where the town's history is entwined with the military like the strands of a schoolgirl's braids, locals cite the Army's longstanding safety record and its economic infusion into the community as a basis for their faith. After all, no humans have been killed while working at either the Tooele Army Depot or Dugway Proving Grounds.
Overall, Tooele residents echo what elected officials have been saying for years: Locals don't dwell on the potential for environmental disaster in their hometown. In fact, many of the new facilities have been seen as job opportunities.
"It's been there forever and ever," said Sharon Seals, an aide at the Tooele Public Library. "It's always been here."
Steve Sly, manager of BMC West Building Materials located on Main Street, said those who complain the loudest about Tooele being a radioactive or chemical wasteland live outside city limits.
"The only people who talk about it," he said, "are the people from Salt Lake City." Joel Dunn, publisher of the twice-weekly Tooele Transcript, calls the complainers "carpetbaggers."
According to Robert Chance, a good-natured barber at Michael's Barber Shop on Vine Street, Tooele residents don't dwell on pollution or the threat of leaking chemical munitions. "I guess it doesn't matter where you live, there's always a problem. At least we're not shaking down to the ground, like San Francisco."
Other residents admit some concern. "A job's a job," said Tammy Maestras, a maintenance worker at the Tooele Senior Citizens Center. "One thing goes off, and we're all dead anyway. I've got little children. So yeah, I worry about it."
"Sure, I worry about it," said Shirley Nelson, of the Lovely Lady Beauty Supply, located downtown on Vine Street. "I've got a townful of grandkids. My husband died of cancer. So don't get me started.
"I think a lot of people's attitude is we can't do anything about it." She said she tried to get her son to attend public meetings but he declined, saying they were for old people.
Steve Erickson, head of Downwinders, a watchdog group based in Salt Lake City, contends Tooele appears unaware of the potential at its doorstop for a "major-league disaster." "We just don't have too much of a margin of error.
"Somebody's got to pay attention here," Erickson said. "There are too many examples of the Army screwing up bad. There's significant problems out there that are not being addressed adequately at any level of government, in my estimation."
But Erickson admits his self-appointed watch duty is lonely, and at times, appears to be a Herculean task. "Gosh, we've got our hands full. There's very few of us doing this kind of work."
Tooele is a rural town of nearly 16,000, tucked between the Oquirrh Mountains to the east and the Stansbury Mountains to the west. This desert stop is a small-town, down-home kind of place, where residents are apt to greet out-of-towners on the sidewalk with a jaunty "Howdy."
Located just west of Salt Lake County, Tooele County is the second-largest in the state. It offers the kind of elbow room the West was settled for, with just under 29,000. Its 6,923 square miles of land could enfold about six states the size of Rhode Island. That works out to plenty of breathing room, with about four residents to the square mile, not counting jackrabbits.
The county's sparsely populated western desert continues to be the place that political officials on the populated Wasatch Front envision as a Vitro tailings dump or a lake drain. Then there's the hazardous-waste industry, which sees golden opportunities in the desert's unique topography, sparse population and wide-open plains, easily accessible off I-80.
Joe Urbanik, director of development services for Tooele County, said officials saw the writing on the wall 2 1/2 years ago. The transplantation of the Vitro tailings to Tooele sparked the county to revise its master plan and put more teeth in its regulatory ordinances.
In the process, the county designated a West Desert Hazardous Industry Area, a 180-mile chunk of desert located about 30 miles west of Grantsville and 28 miles east of Wendover. The county approved an ordinance last year that requires hazardous-waste operators to pay $50,000 up-front in fees and obtain a Class B permit from the state before the county will consider its application.
"We felt it was the only vehicle to protect ourselves," said Urbanik, chairman of the state's Solid and Hazardous Waste Committee. "Nobody was going to do it for us. We could see what the Wasatch Front mentality was. `Tooele? That's got to be another state. That's like Nevada.' "
He criticized that urban mentality, which he contends is the idea that once someone drives west past Kennecott, they might as well be in the deserts of Egypt. "We view your stuff just like you view out-of-state waste.
"I would dare say right now we've got the full envelope of (regulatory) tools. And the tailings move triggered all this. The perception is any Tom, Dick or Harry could come out here and scratch a hole in the ground and start dumping. Huh-uh."
Despite the majority of Tooele residents who say they don't worry, others, such as Millie Treadwell, a volunteer at the Tooele Senior Citizens Center, say they will always remember the sheep.
On March 19, 1968, Deseret News Reporter Joseph T. Liddell reported a mystery epidemic that killed 4,900 sheep, whose carcasses were found at the foot of the Cedar Mountains east of the Dugway Proving Ground. The Army later admitted it had conducted tests of lethal nerve agent at Dugway on March 13. While government officials didn't claim responsibility for the sheep deaths, they later contracted to pay $376,000 damages for 6,400 animals.
At Tooele High School, Larry Silcox teaches current events in his elective course, "Sociology Economics," using Newsweek magazine for his text. He admitted many of his students appear cavalier to the dangers posed by their parents' employers. Of living in proximity to an abundant array of toxic gases and hazardous wastes, Silcox said, "I think we've come to accept that as part of life."
He said his students are more concerned about the area's image than any direct environmental or health threats.
"They don't like the idea that we're perceived across the nation as a place to get rid of toxic wastes. I think the image aspect problem is more important to them than the actual threat that's posed to them of the waste itself."
Many residents express confidence in Army officials who oversee Depot operations. They are grateful for the jobs provided by TAD and Dugway that fuel the county's economy, and proud of the role their county plays in the country's defense efforts.
"The life and blood of this town is that base," said Joseph Bates, of Bates Hearing Aid Center. "These people have really got a blessing from that base."
Bill Allsop, a Tooele native who used to work at TAD, said he places confidence in Army officials. "I think they've got a mission to do, and I think Tooele's the best place to do it."
"I just have to have faith in the people above me," said Millie Treadwell. "The people that can my peaches, I have to have faith in them."
Others admit residents probably are kept ill-informed about actual incidents. "If the Army talked about it, we wouldn't have a Tooele. People would move away," said Jeff Ekins, from his post minding the counter at Tooele Supply Co. But he said he doesn't worry about environmental hazards.
"Why worry?" asks Edna Robinson, a counter waitress at The Bowlin' Alley. "I worry about living day to day. What comes tomorrow is going to be."