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Leon Bear
Chairman, Skull Valley Band Tribal Council
Continued...
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.
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