We arrived in Salt Lake City last night. We woke up, did some chores, and then drove out to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation.

Skull Valley is an hour s.w. of Salt Lake City, 25 miles off the main highway. The valley they live in is beautiful and is more lush than I expected. To get there, you drive through open cattle range - pretty gruesome actually with many dead cows off the side of the road. It's evidently more cost effective to collect insurance on the dead cows than to put up fences.

The Goshutes are being targeted by Private Fuel Storage (a conglomerate of the big energy companies) for nuclear waste disposal.

The self appointed leader of the tribe, Leon Bear has agreed to take the waste for a cash settlement. Even though the majority of the tribe doesn't want to take the waste and also doesn't recognize Leon as their leader, the BIA has chosen to recognize Bear's decision as legitimate on behalf of the tribe. It doesn't make much sense to me, but these things seem to happen in Indian Country, where the tribes are often at the mercy of corrupt, puppet leaders. Of course PFS loves Leon.

The Nuclear Regulatory Committee has recently said they may not license the facility because it falls in the flight pattern of F-16's from a military base close by. This would be a great victory for the Goshutes. The leader that the majority of the tribe is supporting is Sammy Blackbear. We met Sammy Blackbear along with another activist, Margene Bullcreek a long time ago when they started this battle against the dump.

Even though most of the tribe doesn't have running water, they don't want to trade their dignity or land for money; they don't want to be bought. The tribe is being offered money so that they can take the money and leave to find a better place to live. It would be hard to resist this, the reservation is surrounded by a military testing site, a waste incinerator, and a nerve gas plant. But their resistance serves all of us. If we can keep the nuclear energy companies from finding more storage, we can shut them down.

On the way home we saw a bizarre sight. Just as we were discussing the conspiracy around Senator Paul Wellstone's death, I looked on the roof of a rusted out abandoned gas station and saw a man, in dark clothes and a ski mask, crouching down with an assault rifle in his hands. His head followed our van as we passed. We all saw it and were completely shocked. We called 911 and reported it, but never found out what it was all about.

Amy Ray's Tour Diary Continues:
April 19th, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado