NIMBY, or Not In My Back Yard has become an everyday acronym to describe Nuclear Facilities and other unwanted additions to a state's landscape. In the past few decades the debate over where to put nuclear waste has escalated as the pressure mounts to find a permanent home for spent nuclear fuel. For about a decade the locus of this debate was over a small tract of land, little more than one square mile in area in the Western Desert of Utah, 40 miles from the state capitol of Salt Lake City. There have been many competing voices nationally and locally on the ethics, environmental impact, safety and other issues related to storing nuclear waste so near a major population center. The interview presented below will give you just a sample of a rich and varied debate that still today has not totally settled.
The purpose of these interviews is to allow you, the reader, to gain a more complete understanding of the complexities facing the nuclear debate in America today. Also, think about the debate surrounding nuclear fallout during the 1950s and 1960s, yes many of the competing voices have been lost in the sands of time since that time, but when you consider the richness of the following debate consider the richness of that debate that operated on a much grander scale, with far higher stakes.
Below are five interviews, two from tribal members with opposing viewpoints, one from a power company representative, one from an Indian Affairs bureaucrat, and one with the former Gov. of Utah Mike Levitt. Finally, this page contains one opinion piece by a group that claims responsibility for a major blow in the creation of the waste management facility.
Member of the Skull Valley Tribe
Interview with Leon Bear
Power Company Representative
Director of Indian Affairs
Interview with the Gov.
Skull Valley Defeated
