OREM — Political leaders are guilty of paternalism and "environmental racism" as they fight the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indians against storing spent nuclear fuel rods in Tooele County, a historian says.

But the plan to store the rods in stainless steel containers on a concrete slab three feet above the ground is scary to many Utahns, Utah State history professor David Rich Lewis said.

"The fear and the opposition in Utah is strong — and rightly so," he said.

Lewis spoke Monday night at Utah Valley State College about American Indian sovereignty and the politics surrounding the 1997 agreement between the Goshutes and Private Fuel Storage, a limited liability company formed by eight large utilities to find places to temporarily store nuclear waste.

An example of environmental racism was the so-called "Plan B," tossed around two years ago, when political leaders opposed nuclear waste close to the Wasatch Front, at the same time advocating its storage in rural parts of the state.

The Plan B advocates suggested that as long as the Indians got to profit from it, the state might as well, too, Lewis said.

Skull Valley borders Air Force testing ranges; U.S. Magnesium, the highest polluter in the United States; and military facilities that incinerate a nerve agent, all of which makes companies hesitant to relocate to the reservation.

That leaves the reservation, which has an unemployment rate three times the national average, with few options for economic development, Lewis said.

The state should give up fighting PFS in court or passing high taxes against it, and instead try to work with the Goshutes.

"I think the state has models for this," Lewis said. "They have it with corporations. The point is to negotiate alternatives."

Proposed legislation to give the Goshutes $2 million in exchange for it ending its agreement with PFS was not properly funded. No money from the state's budget was actually appropriated for the bill; Goshute leader Leon Bear saw through it and declined, Lewis said.

About 50 students, faculty and members of the public attended Lewis' lecture, including Highland resident Anne Sward Hansen of the Environmental Justice Foundation.

Hansen said she works with tribe members who are disgruntled with Bear. Bear lacks legitimacy among people who live in Skull Valley. She said she is fighting the Bureau of Indian Affairs' interpretation of Goshute tribal government.

"There's never been a bank statement, a budget, no distribution of money from PFS" to the local people, she said.

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com