Some members of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians are praising the recent denial of a lease to temporarily store nuclear waste on the Tooele County reservation.

Margene Bullcreek, founder of the group Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia, said this week that she was speaking for about one-third of the small band of about 125 people when she said the proposed Private Fuel Storage site would have been a bad deal for her people.

"It gives me a great sense of being an Indigenous woman that Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia members not only spoke out against nuclear power and waste but also stood up for our cultural and traditional values and the protection of animal life, air, water, people and Mother Earth," Bullcreek said in a statement on the Sept. 7 decision. "And in the end, this stance was recognized by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs."

Embattled Chairman Leon Bear said the agreement a decade ago to create an interim storage site for 40,000 tons of nuclear waste was approved by a majority of the band's membership, and as far as he knows the support is still there.

"The people that have signed off on the resolution to approve the project, we've been updating them twice a year," he said. "They are still interested in it as far as I can tell."

Bear said he was waiting to hear from officials with Private Fuel Storage before deciding how, or if, to proceed.

Bear, whose term expired in 2004, has called off a series of elections, citing a failure to reach a quorum of 44 members.

On Wednesday, Chet Mills, superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Uintah and Ouray Agency, said he was leaning toward holding an election, as the band requested by resolution last month, but a final decision had yet to be made. The resolution, made after Vice Chairwoman Lori Bear resigned, called for tribal business to stop until an election could be held.

"We are making sure we are covering all our bases," Mills said. "Once a decision is made, we internally have discussed holding (an election) as soon as possible."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com