The Skull Valley band of Goshute Indians reacted angrily on Friday to a Thursday proposal by Rep. Merrill Cook, R-Utah, that Congress thwart the tribe's efforts to build a nuclear waste repository on their reservation in Tooele County.
"Despite our five years of intensive study on this issue, no one has been able to present one shred of scientific evidence that this facility would not be safe," Leon D. Bear, chairman of the band's executive committee, said in a written statement.Bear said efforts to keep the Goshutes from realizing plans to form a waste-dump partnership overlook rights of sovereignty the group has on its reservation.
He urged Utahns on the 150th anniversary of the state to "remember another persecuted people . . . pushed out of their homeland and who are being attacked for their beliefs and for their pursuit of a secure future for their children."
Under a proposal by an out-of-state utility consortium, the Goshutes would agree - in exchange for jobs and cash - to store spent nuclear-reactor cores at a special facility on the Skull Valley reservation, about 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
"We deserve the same opportunities as all other Utahns to be heard and to pursue business interests we feel are in our best interest," Bear said.