Leon Bear has been the most prominent member of the Skull Valley Band on the subject of creating a temporary nuclear waste storage site on his tribe's reservation lands in Tooele County.
With his father a former Chairman of the tribal council, Leon Bear has been involved with tribal leadership positions through the nearly 12 years of study that have gone into the Skull Valley Band's decision to sign a contract with Private Fuel Storage.
Leon Bear was interviewed by Ken Verdoia in the Band's office, which is located in South Salt Lake City.
Ken Verdoia: Chairman, I'm going to begin with a simple question. How did the Skull Valley Band of Goshute ever become involved with consideration of storing high level radioactive waste?
Leon Bear: Well, it all started back in 1989 when the DOE, the Department of Energy, came to us offering grants to study to be a host for interim storage facility called the MRS. And at that time my father and my uncle were the Chairman and the Vice-Chair and they decided that they should learn about this cause this is coming. And somebody's going to have to host this facility.
Verdoia: So phase one, you kind of took a look at it and, if I'm correct, weren't you involved with economic development at the reservation?
Bear: No, I was the Tribal Secretary at the time.
Verdoia: Tribal Secretary. So you take a first look at it. What's your reaction?
Bear: Well at first we thought that we're kind of leary of the federal government, because of all the broken treaties, but we were leary of the federal government and their offer, thinking it was something, some way to tie us into this and get us to take this waste at that time. And we got the grant, $100,000 to do the phase one study and as we proceeded to do the study we realized that actually hosting a interim storage was not a bad idea for the Band. And so we proceeded into phase two of it which was a $200,000 grant and we went to different countries, France, Sweden, England and Japan to study this thing and the one thing that interests us was the Japanese because they had been bombed and we we wanted to see what the effect or the impact nuclear had on them. And now their country is almost all nuclear. You know, the power they get is from nuclear power.
Verdoia: Phase two, closely study it. Department of Energy is encouraging that interest and then all of a sudden politics weighs in and the Department of Energy pulls the rug out from underneath you.
Bear: Well, they pulled the funding. They didn't actually stop the program, they just pulled the funding which killed the program. That was in 1993, almost 1994. In fact at that time we had negotiated a contract or a lease with the Office of the Negotiator and in January of 1994 we had actually gone up to Idaho with the lease pretty much negotiated in hand. As we found out they had pulled the appropriations out of it.
We had done some tours. We took the many members of the Band, actually, whoever wanted to go, and understand this thing fully, we took them up to INEL (the Federal Nuclear Research Facility in Idaho) and showed them what a spent fuel, I mean, what a dry cask storage is. We also toured Yucca Mountain. We took them all to Yucca Mountain, to tour the repository. We actually took them also to Prairie Island, Northern States Power, which is now Xcel. We took them over and showed them that dry cask storage also. So we've been trying to educate our people. Out of the phase one and phase two programs though, we put together two reports and two videos for the tribe, for information. And we showed those videos and those phase reports to the Band and gave them a copy.
Verdoia: So what originally is begun as the Department of Energy federal program, the funding gets pulled, how did it become a private sector tribal program?
Bear: Well, we pretty much had a lease in hand when we went up to, when we went up to the [Department of Energy] Office of Negotiator, ready to sign it. And the Chairman at the time wanted to, well after they closed that office, he wanted to make sure that we cover all our bases and if there's anyway we could do a storage facility we should look around and find out. And so that's where we proceeded to look for a private entity to help us store this.
Verdoia: So, Private Fuel Storage just kind of walked through the door or did you walk through their door or how did this come about?
Bear: Well from 1994 to 1996 it took us two years to find a corporation or entity to partner up with us, to do this storage. So it's been awhile. We stayed in the game and we continued educating ourselves. We continued going to conferences, high level nuclear waste conferences and other conferences that deal with environmental issues or environmental justice issues. We also went to the state, at the time Governor Leavitt, and we had told him that this was our plan, this is what we were going to do, open up the storage facility, and asked him if the state of Utah wanted to be involved we would appreciate it. We also asked him that if he knew of anything that could harm us in anyway, to let us know because we want to study it. To make sure that we were doing the right thing. So in 1994, we had included the state in this process.
Verdoia: So, you've been studying more than ten years. You're in contact with the state since 1994. You signed the contract with PFS and elected officials are saying, "Oh my gosh, how can you do such a thing? We would have been glad to help you." How do you respond to that type of comment that's made to you now?
Bear: Well, the thing is that we kind of set ourselves up. We went to the governor and asked him, asked the state if they want to be involved and at that time the comment was, "Over my dead body." That was the governor's comment to us. So we were set up. I mean, we set ourselves up on that issue because we wanted to know how the state was feeling about this whole project and apparently that was how they felt, so in 1997 when we signed the lease and it started picking up momentum, we knew that the state was against it already, going into this. We knew the politics were going to be there. The only thing we didn't know is how much of it was going to be. And you know, that's the politicians they're kind of scary guys. You go up to the Capitol, or you go to Washington, D.C., and it's all politics. It's a game that they play.
Verdoia: There are people who intimate to us that you and your Band have been taken advantage of by public utilities. . .that the Skull Valley Band lacks the sophistication to negotiate these very deep waters. How do you respond?
Bear: Well, people are people no matter where you go. Whether they're stupid or not, people need people. How do you think this country was built? Not because of stupidity, same with the reservations. How do you think we survive? Not because of stupidity, so to answer that question, it's kind of irrelevant to answer that question because of that. We're here and we will continue to be here. We're not going anywhere. The Goshute people are here and we're going to be here and we're not going anywhere. No matter how stupid people think we are, we're still here.
Verdoia: Is there racism that enters into this? If this was a white community out in Skull Valley that decided this would be a good idea but because it's a Native American Band?
Bear: It does enter the mind about racism and I have mentioned it a couple of times. There are different types of racisms. One that I've always talked about was environmental racism because of the way the governor speaks about how we're not being good neighbors and we're devaluating the property because of this project and all this stuff. I'm very uncomfortable with that because of what's already out in the West Desert. We have nerve agents, we have biological labs, hazardous and toxic waste depots, low level radioactive waste depots, incinerators but yet this project specifically will devaluate the property which I believe is not true. I'm more scared of nerve agent or biological chemicals then I am of spent fuel, of the radiation.
Verdoia: Many people struggle with the concept of Native American sovereignty. In the treaty of 1863, your people really did not give up your land. You really did not move to different lands. You weren't pushed onto different lands. Help the average person out there understand this notion of your sovereignty, your right as a people to self determent.
Bear: Well, the treaty was signed in 1863 in Tooele Valley and this treaty, this specific treaty, there's others that are designed in this same fashion, but this treaty was designed to take away rights and it did take away rights. It took away our labor rights. It took away our mineral rights. It grounded passage because the pioneers were going out to the California to the gold fields at that time, so this treaty was the one to take away rights and there's some rights that they did not take. One was the right to have the land. The other right was hunting, fishing. The other right was gathering. So we still retain those rights under our treaty, which hasn't been taken away. And as you state these rights, that's what makes the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes a sovereign nation because these rights were not taken away. We still retain those rights as of today.
Verdoia: One thing that you issued in January of 2001 was a "State of the Skull Valley Band" and you deliberately released that on the day that the Governor of the state of Utah, Michael Leavitt, was giving his State of the State address. But you hit the governor's message about how great things are going. That was the message of the governor's State of the State address. And you said that the people of Utah need to know there's another issue in this. The state of my people.
Bear: Well, there's a few points that I tried to make. One was that even though the state of Utah is prospering, the Skull Valley Band is not and our people are suffering because of that. I've said there's environmental issues out there, and our ribe does not receive any benefits from those issues and we have no protection out there to fight against those issues. And this is one of the things that we hope that when we do get the storage facility, it will provide us with money to protect ourselves, to monitor, to help our people, as far as health insurance goes. Because the closest health IHS, Indian Health Service, is 250 miles away. It's east of us here, and if you're sick or you've got a broken leg, you have to go 250 miles. That's a long ways to go for for medical care.
So the issues in that state address that I published, those are some of the issues that we're involved in it. And yeah, the state may be looking good, but the Skull Valley Band and I believe for other tribes in the state, I believe I could speak for them too, that it's not looking so good. I mean, we have a tribe north of us, the Northwestern Band of Shoshones who don't have a land base and if they do it's very small. Then we got the the Northern Utes and the Southern Piutes and Confederate Tribes of Goshutes who all, on their reservations, they're trying to develop economics just as we are and the same, in the same broad sense, but if the state is going to do things like they're doing today how does that look? I mean, I really don't understand how the state can on one hand say we're going to help you economically, and on the other hand try to divert or try to take something away from us.
Verdoia: Let's talk about what the state has recently done, because during the Utah State Legislature several bills were put forward, not all of them passed, but bottom line is the Legislature went on the record to try to do everything it can to block the creation of a temporary storage site for radioactive waste. What's your reaction to the State Legislature and what they tried to do?
Bear: Well I respect them, They're trying to do a job which know this is purely political. It has nothing to do with economics. I has nothing to do with equality, it has nothing to do with anything but politics. I believe that our economic development out in Skull Valley, we're going to keep pushing and we're going to keep going forward with that whether the state wants to be a party to it or not. I mean this is our survival. This is what we have to do because the state's not helping us. Federal government is being cut down. The Bureau of Indian Affairs are being cut and we're a small tribe.
You know, we only have 112 members and so we pretty much have to take care of ourselves out here. According to some of the bills that have been passed, we got some outrageous things going on. As far as the taxation goes, as far as bonding, as far as transportation, as far as economic developments. But the issue that we're looking at today is that we're looking at the state of Utah, they're sending us a signal and a message and we're picking up that message and you know, we hear it. I don't know if it helps but we do hear the message they're trying to send us.
Verdoia: You're Chairman of the Skull Valley Band, your people in the Band are saying, "Well we've made this choice." Is it just a matter of we've got to disagree, we've got to do what we think is right for the Skull Valley Band?
Bear: If we haven't learned from history. . .the federal government came to us, signed a treaty with us, broke those treaties with us and we're out today. The state of Utah is following that same mode of what they're doing. On one hand they promise us in Senate Bill 199, they promised us $2 million for economic development. The bill passed but there's no appropriations in the bill. It's an empty shell of a bill. I mean, is that the messages that the state of Utah want to send to the Goshute people or to any Indian nation, to that to that fact? And on the other bill, I think it's Senate Bill 81, then they put the strong language in there about taxation and about bonding. In the United States there's a thing called the Uniformity Act that everything's got to be equal. I don't know if the state's read that act before or not and there's another act, the Interstate Commerce Act. I don't know if they've read those acts, but these bills, that's when you talk about constitutional, these bills are not.
Verdoia: There are members of your own Band who claim the whole process is corrupt. People are being bought off. Their support of this is being purchased. How do you respond to those people who say that people are being bought off, that money is making this go?
Bear: You know, I hear it and there's no proof to that fact, but there's allegations out there. I watch what's going on in the state of Utah. It's just like the other waste facilities. You hear it in the paper about Envirocare paying off one of their regulators to do something. You hear that and you read it. There's evidence that somebody went to court on that, but I don't see that here. I don't see anybody getting paid off. I really don't know how to answer those allegations because it's not true.
Verdoia: Are you guilty?
Bear: Of what? Of being, being here? Being human? Trying to provide economics for my people? Yes, I'm guilty of that.
Verdoia: The state takes issue with the contract being secret. We've asked to see the contract and have been refused access. Why? There must be something wrong otherwise why can't we look at the contract? Why can't people look at the contract?
Bear: It's like a business. I mean you signed a contract with a corporation. Another corporation signed a contract with another corporation, and you can't look at that contract. It's none of your business. In the same essence, this is the same thing. We signed a contract or a lease with Private Fuel. It's nobody's business but the Band's and Private Fuel's. And you know, that's why you can't see the contract.
Verdoia: What do you say to people who say, well if the rumors we heard are true, every man, woman and child alive in the Skull Valley Band today is going to make $2 million or $3 million over the life of this contract.
Bear: Well, if they do make that much money I'll be doing my job now, won't I? That's why they put me in office - so that we can make money and so that we can prosper and build infrastructure on our reservation. That's the whole purpose of this whole thing. And also, to keep our traditions and our cultural resources intact at the same time.
Verdoia: How tough is keeping the culture, keeping the people together? In the face of everything that is going on. How difficult is it to hold the people, the culture, the life together?
Bear: It's up to the people. That's probably the simplest answer I could give. It's up to the people to decide what they want to do and how far they want their traditions and culture to be maintained. It's up to the people. I can't force them to do anything. I'm just, I'm a leader, of course, and I'm leading them to a certain point that I believe is good for the people, but it's up to the people themselves to determine how much culture or traditions they want to maintain.
Verdoia: What about those people who say sure the Skull Valley Band says it's temporary, but once that waste gets out there it's never going to leave?
Bear: Well, the facility is not designed to be permanent. That's the first thing. The second thing is that we actually have a lease with the PFS and once the 40 years is up, they have to leave, according to the lease unless they renegotiate the lease to extend it. And they can't do that unless the NRC extends their license. So the license with the NRC is only for 40 years. So there's a lot of roadblocks into this thing becoming a defact repository . I always tell them, "I don't believe you guys want to leave the spent fuel with us, the tribal government." You know, because we don't look at it as waste. We look at it as a commodity. There's a lot of countries out there that are looking for this spent fuel, used spent fuel so they could reprocess it. So we understand that there is a market for this spent fuel.
Verdoia: So if they leave it with you too long, you'll market the commodity?
Bear: We may. We may do that. That would be up to the federal government and the private entities.
Verdoia: You talk about this as an act of self-determination and the Skull Valley Band doing what is right to secure its future. And then other people say this is all being dictated by Minneapolis. This is Xcel Energy telling the Goshute people what to do. Telling the Skull Valley Band what to do. That all the decisions are made in Minneapolis. How true is that?
Bear: Well if they are, this is the first time I've heard about it. We do have meetings with PFS continuously and we are all brought up to date on what's going on out there in the other states. Minnesota is one of them. So we are aware of what's happening out there. We talk about self-determination, and it's just like being educated. At the beginning we didn't know anything about spent fuel. So somebody had to tell us about it. And once they did tell us about it and once they showed us the technology, it made sense. So somebody has to tell us. Somebody has to tell somebody what's going on, whether it be the truth or not the truth. And that's where we're standing right now. Whether the decisions that PFS makes are coming out of Minnesota or Wisconsin or wherever, for PFS I believe they are. But as for the Band, the decisions are made by the Executive Committee, which are taken back to the general Counsel to decide whether this is good or bad for them.
Verdoia: Has this issue split the tribe? Split the Skull Valley Band?
Bear: When you say split, I don't believe so because we got 2/3 signing off on a resolution to do this project. I don't believe that's a split.
Verdoia: But you can't make everyone happy.
Bear: Oh no. You never can.
Verdoia: And the most unhappy ones are the loudest ones?
Bear: That's right. Those will be the loudest. That's what we believe. We're in this project for the economics of it. We believe that it's a safe facility. It's a clean facility. We don't believe that there's any environmental issues surrounding this storage.
Verdoia: Would you accept it if it was dangerous?
Bear: No. You know that's one of the things I've always said is that the state of Utah snuck one in on us because at the time, we did not understand what hazardous, toxic waste was and we did not understand what nerve agents were or biological. And I think the federal government snuck one in on us also because surrounding our reservation we have all those things. And we were never consulted on those issues whether we liked it or not. They didn't tell us that these things were dangerous. They didn't come out and tell the Goshute Band or the Counsel that, "How would you guys like to have a hazardous and toxic waste dump by you? Or how would you like to have a low level radioactive dump by you? Or how would you like to have the biological labs by you? Or the storage of nerve agents by you?" See those are the things that we don't want to be like that. We want to let everybody know and that was why in 1994 we approached the governor and told him what we were doing. Because we're trying to be good neighbors. We're trying to do everything right at this point. And we're still continuing to do that by answering everybody who has a question on this. The NRC has contentions that are coming out, questions all the time and we're trying to answer those questions as fully as we can.
Source: http://www.kued.org/
Questions:
1. Leon Bear mentions that two thirds of his people supported the reserve, do you feel this is a large enough majority to justify a nuclear waste site?
2. Leon Bear is very concerned with the sovreignty of his people; do you believe that he has the right to do what he wishes on his people's lands (assuming he rules with their consent)?
3. Do you believe that Leon Bear is truly concerned with the welfare of his people? The interviewer seems to question this, and they are almost combative at times.
4. Hypthetically, if the Nuclear Waste site does turn out to be a hazard will the "two or three million dollars" for every person be adequate compensation for childhood cancers, miscarriages, and other medical complications that radiation can bring about?
5. After reading this interview do you think the efforts to store irridatated materials in the Goshute preserve is similar to the Atomic Energy Commissions irridation of large sections of the Western United States 50 years earlier?
6. Do you believe Leon Bear that this facility will not be harmful?
