"You learn quickly that the first victim of nuclear weapons or nuclear power is the truth, and the first casualty is the government's ability to tell the truth," said home-grown nuclear activist J. Preston Truman.

The No. 1 air polluter in all of North America — Magnesium Corp. of America (MagCorp) — is located on the western shore of the Great Salt Lake, upwind from 1.5 million people living along the Wasatch Front.

"You would think we would have learned from the past," Truman said. "Utah has been the ultimate sacrifice zone."

America's dumping ground

Utah's toxic legacy is inextricably intertwined with global events of the past 50 years that transformed a state renowned for natural beauty into a dumping ground.

Utah's toxic inventory Requires Adobe Acrobat.