Skull Valley home getting solar panels
Group hopes renewable energy idea takes hold
Honor the Earth is installing a solar-electric array at the home of Margene Bullcreek, who led opposition to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians' agreement with Private Fuel Storage to temporarily store up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the reservation 50 miles west of Salt Lake City.
"We're hoping this is a replicable model that does get replicated on other people's homes," said Yana Garcia, pilot project coordinator for the foundation's Energy Justice Campaign. "It's also a national model across Native America."
Bullcreek's home was chosen because of her efforts to stymie the PFS deal, Garcia said, and the environmental group plans to offset Bullcreek's energy costs. The project also includes education on solar energy in Skull Valley, and Garcia said the hope is to similarly equip other homes there.
Bullcreek hopes the project will help heal the yearslong division among members of the small band over the nuclear deal.
But she admits, "We're not getting as many supporters as I'd like to see."
The band and PFS recently filed a lawsuit challenging Department of Interior rulings that killed the deal last year.
"We are still for it," said Chairman Lawrence Bear of the PFS deal, which many in the band saw as a lucrative economic development project. "A lot of politicians say it's dead. It's not dead."
Bear said he didn't know anything about the solar project or whether it would benefit the small band.
"Margene didn't even talk to us about that," he said. "She didn't go through the proper channels."
Bullcreek called Bear's comments more of the same, as she has accused tribal leaders of punishing her opposition to the project by fabricating rules that have prevented her from improving her home.
Now, Bullcreek hopes her home will become a model that is used on other homes on the reservation, and elsewhere.
"They can encourage people to go solar, rather than make radioactive waste," she said.
The 10-foot-by-10-foot solar array will consist of two rows of five solar panels, mounted atop a pole, producing up to 1.8 kilowatts each day, said Johnny Weiss, executive director of the Colorado-based nonprofit Solar Energy International, a partner in the project.
"It's hooked to the utility," he said. "Any time the sun is shining it will be feeding power into the house and the grid."
Carol Weis, the nonprofit's solar instructor, says it's hard to say what percentage of a household's electricity can be provided by such an array because everyone uses a different amount of electricity. Installation of such an array runs about $15,000.
"At this particular site we think it will be about two-thirds ... a significant portion of the electrical bill," she said.
This will be Heal the Earth's third renewable energy pilot project. The foundation also has installed wind turbines on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and has conducted youth training in Chiapas, Mexico.
E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com
Recent comments
But can you yourself say that you are capable of doing better?
Anonymous | Aug. 31, 2007 at 2:04 p.m.
If Margene was a true leader she would have helped her own people...
Mary Allen (Former Vice-Char) | Aug. 23, 2007 at 7:29 p.m.
- Canal breaks, causes landslide in Logan 1:07 p.m.
- Reptile Lou won't eat 1:06 p.m.
- Three injured in South Ogden shooting 1:05 p.m.
- Upsets at Saturday's State Am 12:27 p.m.
- Luxury home market stalls 12:02 p.m.
- Kirk Douglas classic on DVD 11:38 a.m.
- Zion fire moving southeast 11:36 a.m.
- More school-money than expected 11:24 a.m.
- Virginia 'Freedman's' project done 11:12 a.m.
- Teen relive Mormon trek 11:12 a.m.
- Jazz brass debate Millsap match
- LDS seminary principal arrested
- 2 men cited on LDS plaza
- Jazz finances not quite so bleak
- Reactions on Boozer speculation
- HBO defends U. logo use in 'Love'
- Cash for Clunkers to get rolling soon
- Utahns among Texans' investors
- Jazz rookies quiet Thunder youngsters
- 10 years after the flood
- LDS seminary principal arrested
262 - Jazz brass debate Millsap match
170 - Bronco collecting a galaxy of recruits
141 - Jazz talking Boozer trade?
140 - 2 men cited on LDS plaza
127 - Blazers may offer Millsap a contract
124 - Stadium of Fire flag burning was fake
99 - Fairness of BCS debated
81 - Chaffetz eyes challenging Bennett
76 - Letters: Single-payer system best
75
As more and more dads are put out of work in this economy, I've been...
The photographs are mysterious, brooding, dark. They show dimples and...
Tommy is a Prophet, Seer and Revelator! Not there is a good myth!
The UAW are America workers who once build the largest corporation on earth...
@@mark B | 12:39 p.m. Even George W. Bush was against the surge until his...
It seems the Trail Blazers didn't do much to help themselves, but did do a...
As one who was once falsely accused of similar acts, but later the young girl...
REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED WHEN UTAH GAVE TOO MUCH FOR OSTERTAG? iT SCREWED THEM...
These teens re-lived the hardships of the Mormon Trail? Such silly...
Guess what?!! The rest of the world thinks MORMONS ARE NOT MORAL!!!
@If I were Obama | 7:25 a.m. So funny. LMAO with this comment. Just...
"Fight the Power" is trying to make a civil rights analogy here that...

