KUED-TV crews traveled more than 10,000 miles and worked in eight different states during production of Skull Valley. Producer Ken Verdoia has provided an exclusive look behind the scenes.

(Note: click on the thumbnail images for larger photos.)

Private Fuel Storage Project Director Scott Northard (center) with KUED crew at the dry cask radioactive waste storage site near the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Red Wing, Minnesota in February, 2001. The proposed Skull Valley storage project would use technology very similar to the Prairie Island above ground storage system. KUED crew members surrounding Northard are, from left, Erik Nielsen, Ken Verdoia, Northard, Bill Brussard and Kevin Sweet.

Cameraman Bill Brussard and Sound Engineer Kevin Sweet capture the sights and sounds of a simulated reactor control center used for training at the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Minnesota.

Dispelling the glamour of a career in television, Cameraman Bill Brussard (R) and Sound Engineer Kevin Sweet battle -2 degree temperatures while working in Minnesota on the Skull Valley documentary.

Sound Engineer Kevin Sweet undergoes a mandatory security check prior to entering the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant in Minnesota. Prairie Island is owned and operated by Xcel Energy, one of the prime movers in the Private Fuel Storage partnership.

Cameraman Bill Brussard photographs the isolated Simpson Spring Pony Express station in an isolated section of Tooele County, Utah. The Pony Express and the Overland Stage represented the first two major inroads on traditional lands of the Goshute Indians in the early 1860s.

The primary field production team of Skull Valley on location in the West Desert area of Utah. From left-to-right, Sound Engineer Kevin Sweet, Cameraman Bill Brussard, Producer Ken Verdoia and all-around, "jack of all trades" Erik Nielsen, who is most often under-identified as a "Grip".

Production took the KUED crews to dozens of different locations in the nation, where the reception could range from hostility to touching hospitality. No hospitality, however, rivaled the greeting from these two "range" dogs who lavished a greeting on producer Ken Verdoia as the crew worked outside of Wendover, Utah.

"The Sounds of Silence." Sound Engineer Kevin Sweet patiently waits for the right natural sounds to reflect life on the lands of the Goshute Indian tribe reservation lands in the Deep Creek Mountains near Ibapah, Utah.

Over two miles inside the solid rock of Yucca Mountain, KUED crew members ride a rail car to reach the site of Department of Energy studies on permanent storage of nculear waste in Nevada.
Back row, left-to-right, Producer Ken Verdoia, Cameraman Bill Brussard and Sound Engineer Kevin Sweet.

Bill Brussard and Kevin Sweet prepare to capture the sights and sounds of entering the deep underground storage site at Yucca Mountain. The Nevada site is the subject of sharp controversy, with state officials adamantly opposing the selection of Yucca Mountain as a permanent storage site for the nation's nuclear waste.

From a plateau on top of Yucca Mountain, KUED crews capture the open landscape of the Nevada Test Site. In the 1950s and 60s, nuclear weapons were tested in the open air near the valley in the background. Radioactive fallout from those tests routinely drifted downwind to Utah. In the 1980s, Congress acknowledged that the fallout had contributed to numerous cancer cases in the downwind populations.

KUED crew member Erik Nielsen receives training in the use of a chemical warfare protection mask, in preparation for working in and around the Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele County. The Depot, only a range of hills away from the Skull Valley reservation, is busy destroying aging chemical weapons under an international treaty. Leaks have been detected in some of the rusting bombs and missiles, and all visitors must be prepared to deal with an emergency.

Producer Ken Verdoia (L), Cameraman Bill Brussard and Sound Engineer Bill Gordon (R) document the transfer of nerve agent artillery shells from a storage bunker to the incineration plant at the Deseret Chemical Depot. Tooele County officials reason that if chemical agents can be safely handled through proper safeguards and technology, the same should be true of radioactive nuclear waste. The County Commission has signed an agreement with Private Fuel Storage to support the nuclear waste storage project proposed for the Skull Valley reservation.