Image of the Day

nuclear utilities, led by Xcel Energy of Minnesota, with Dairyland Power
Co-Op as a front group.
In 2005-2006, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
granted PFS a construction and operating license, despite objections by
traditionals with the Skull Valley band, nearly 500 environmental and
environmental justice organizations, as well as the State of Utah. The plan
was for 40,000 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel to be "temporarily
stored" (for 20 to 40 years) in 4,000 dry casks on the reservation.
However, as the ultimate plan was to transfer the wastes to the Yucca
Mountain dump, when that proposal was cancelled in 2009, this would
have meant the wastes would have been stuck indefinitely at Skull Valley.
In 2006 a very unlikely coalition, involving the likes of Mormon
political leaders and wilderness advocates, succeeded in creating the first
federal wilderness area in Utah in a generation. This created a "moat"
around the Skull Valley reservation, blocking the railway needed to
directly deliver the waste. And, after lobbying efforts at the top echelons
of Republican Party decision making circles by U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch
(R-UT) as well as Utah Governor Huntsman, the George W. Bush
administration's Department of the Interior refused to approve the lease
agreement between PFS and the Skull Valley band, as well as the
intermodal transfer facility on Bureau of Land Management property
which could have allowed heavy haul trucks to ship the waste containers
the final leg of the journey to the reservation.
The Skull Valley Goshutes were first targeted by the nuclear power
establishment more than 20 years ago. Altogether, 60-some tribes have
been actively targeted for high-level radioactive waste parking lot dumps.
All the proposals have been stopped, as through the work of Native
American grassroots environmental activists like Grace Thorpe, working
in alliance with environmental and environmental justice organizations.
Energy Companies Fracking the Colorado River Basin:
The group, Western Resource Advocates, used public
records to conclude that energy companies are collectively
entitled to divert more than 6.5 billion gallons of water a day