Concert to benefit effort to halt nuclear site

A performance by the Grammy Award-winning Indigo Girls this Friday will benefit efforts by some members of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians to keep a proposed nuclear waste storage facility off the Tooele County reservation.

The Honor the Earth benefit concert at Kingsbury Hall will call for renewed citizen action against the dump and the cleanup of existing toxic waste.

The Goshute Indians have negotiated with nuclear power companies to temporarily store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on their Skull Valley reservation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to rule on a license for the waste site early next year.

Honor the Earth program director Winona LaDuke said the Native American environmental advocacy group has plans to research the viability of installing solar panels at Skull Valley "as a model of safe economic development."

Tickets to the concert are $40 for the general public and $20 for students, with proceeds going to two Skull Valley Goshute groups: Gaudadeh Devia Awareness and the Environmental Justice Foundation. For more information, call 801-355-2787.