American West isn't a toilet for dumping nuclear waste

Congressmen Rob Bishop and Chris Cannon are now murmuring in the media that the policy of ignoring Nevada may have been a mistake. With his traditional creativity in parliamentary matters, Bishop has introduced a novel solution of designating land surrounding the Goshute Reservation as wilderness and therefore preventing access. Still upset over rejection, Nevada is not supportive of this clever ploy. Recent comments from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid confirm his frustration as to the little solidarity with Utah on this issue.

Other GOP legislators, and the president, do not care that nuclear waste will be dumped in "Red" states. Party loyalty is meaningless when an opportunity exists to bury your poison in somebody else's back yard. To protect our small state, the shrewd political operatives (I mean this as a compliment) who represent us must prioritize regional concerns over party loyalty.

Webb: I'm what you would call a classic downwinder. When I was 4 or 5 years old in the mid-1950s, my family lived on a beautiful ranch just outside of Zion National Park in Washington County.

It was an idyllic life. But my father recalled feeling the ground shake on many early mornings as he got up to milk the cows. He later read in the newspaper that nuclear weapons were being tested in Nevada. He and my older sisters recalled the actual fallout dust that would spread across our pastures, gardens and orchards. My grandfather would periodically visit us from Salt Lake City and would bring an old Geiger counter to hunt for a uranium mine. He would complain that the background radiation was so high he couldn't tell a uranium vein from the surface rock.

We were completely oblivious to any danger. We played year-round outside in the great southwestern climate. We ate cheese and butter and drank raw milk from our cows that grazed on the contaminated grass. We ate tomatoes, beans, spinach, lettuce, mulberries, apples, grapes and peaches straight from the plant or tree, often without washing them. We drank from the clear waters of North Creek.

While I was away serving my church in Indonesia, my mother, Eleanor, contracted breast cancer. After years of struggle, up and downs, hope and despair, she died at age 58. At about the time of her death, my father, LaVarr, contracted leukemia. He was a tough guy, and he vastly outlived the doctors' expectations, fighting it with chemotherapy for 20 years. He died at age 79, his last years very difficult.

My older sister, Julia, a dedicated schoolteacher contracted cancer and died at age 47, leaving a husband and young family. Another sister, Linda, also a talented teacher and loving mother and wife, suffered the same hard death at age 49.

The doctors in all four cases attributed the cancers to the nuclear fallout.