By Elise Christenson
At their peak, the Goshute Indians numbered 20,000 and inhabited several hundred square miles sprawling from the Wasatch front westward past Wells, Nevada.
The Goshutes lived among native sagebrush, pine trees and food plants. Wild game roamed the country freely. The land was lush then.
Now there are less than 500 Goshutes, 124 of which live on the Skull Valley Reservation, located 35 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, on approximately 18,000 acres of land.
Things look different in Skull Valley. The land is no longer lush.
'It is parched and barren there. It''s a desert,' said Elise Lazar, Tooele County resident.
East of Skull Valley is the world''s largest nerve gas storage facility, recently built to destroy thousands of deadly chemicals.
South of Skull Valley lies the Intermountain Power Project, which provides coal-fired electrical power.
Northwest of Skull Valley is the Enviro-care Low-Level Radioactive Disposal site, which buries radioactive waste for the entire country.
North of Skull Valley, is the Magnesium Corporation plant, identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as the most polluting plant of its kind in the United States.
'The United States government pushed the Goshutes onto the most God-forsaken country in the state,' said Scott York, legal counsel for the Goshute tribe.
Isolated in the desert, the Goshutes have struggled for survival, York said. They apply for state and federal funds, but the funds simply don''t provide enough economic relief, he said.
Because of this, the Skull Valley Goshutes signed a lease agreement in 1998 with Private Fuel Storage to store 40,000 tons of nuclear waste in Skull Valley for 20 years, with a 20-year optional renewal.
'They get remuneration for the use of the land and there''s also opportunity for members of Skull Valley to apply for jobs at the facility,' Martin said.
The project provided hope to a people plagued with hopelessness, York said. But this hope has been hampered by the recent backlash from the community.
'They''ve put them in the nation''s garbage dump and now they''re upset that they want to store the nation''s garbage there,' he said.
The Goshutes have tried several business ventures before, York said, none of which have been successful.
'They have spent years looking for other economic development opportunities,' said Sue Martin, spokesman for Public Fuel Storage. 'It''s difficult to interest anyone in locating a plant out there because of the surroundings.'
One such venture was to bottle water on the reservation, but the Goshutes were unable to persuade bottled-water companies to have water bottled on their site.
'Who would want water bottled in Skull Valley with all of that other stuff around?' Martin said.
Marlinda Wash, secretary of the Skull Valley Reservation, said only about 29 of the members actually live in Skull Valley. The other members have sought work in nearby areas but return to the reservation for meetings.
'There aren''t job opportunities for us here,' Wash said.
The lease with Private Fuel Storage was signed out of economic necessity, York said.
'It''s a choice between this or dying. They couldn''t get any assistance from anyone else,' he said.