Interview with Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues, April 10, 2008

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Native American Forum On Nuclear Issues April 10, 2008 Las Vegas, Nevada Native Community Action Council © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues April 10, 2008 at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Native Community Action Council Table of Contents Opening Prayer: Margene Bullcreek 1 Opening Remarks: Ian Zabarte. 1 Western Shoshone and environmental justice: Treaty of Ruby Valley ( 1863) 3 Native Americans and nuclear issues 5 Margene Bullcreek of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes: history of Private Fuel Storage [ PFS] on reservation lands and effects on Native peoples, environmental racism 7 Joe Kennedy, Chairman of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe: Affected Tribe Status, environmental racism faced by Indian people, federal recognition of Timbisha Shoshone 17 Ian Zabarte: Nuclear Risk Management for Native Communities: history of program, accomplishments, research findings with regard to Native American lifestyles and exposures, importance of collaboration, exposure pathways and dose estimates, public outreach and community education, future areas of address 26 Kenny Anderson: Las Vegas Paiute Tribe: location of reservations, concerns about proponed route of nuclear waste and future of Tribe and Las Vegas Valley 31 Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues University of Nevada Las Vegas April 10 & 11, 2008 Hosted by UNLV Department of Environmental Studies, UNLV Libraries, UNLV History Department and the Native Community Action Council AGENDA Thursday April 10, 2008 Student Recreation Wellness Center ( SRWC) Room 1020 – Across from Cox Pavilion 8: 00 am Meet and Greet/ Slideshow 8: 30 am Welcome/ Agenda Overview – Ian Zabarte 9: 00 am Margene Bullcreek – Skull Valley Goshute, Private Fuel Storage ( MRS) 9: 30 am Dave Hassenzahl – Chairman, Department of Environmental Studies 10: 00 am Break 10: 30 am Joe Kennedy -- Chairman, Timbisha Shoshone Tribe ( Affected Tribe Status) 11: 00 am Ian Zabarte, Nuclear Risk Management For Native Communities 11: 30 am Mary Palevsky, UNLV History Department, NTS Oral History Project 12: 00 pm Lunch ( provided at Dining Commons) 1: 00 pm Tribal Perspectives on Yucca Mountain ( video) 1: 30 pm Steve Frishman, Technical Analyst, Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects 2: 00 pm Fred Dilger, Nevada Transportation Specialist 2: 30pm Break 3: 00 pm Kami Miller, Moapa Band of Paiutes 3: 30 pm Dennis Bechtel, Stigma and Environmental Justice 4: 00 pm Professor Bret Birdsong, UNLV Law School ( NEPA process) April 11, 2008 ( Barrick Museum) 8: 00 am Meet and Greet/ Slideshow 8: 30 am Janet Kotra, Nuclear Regulatory Commission ( High Level Waste Licensing) 9: 00 am Judy Trichel, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force ( NGO’s) 9: 30 am Kenny Anderson, Las Vegas Paiute Tribe 10: 00 am Break 10: 30 am Urban Environmental Research, Shelia Conaway 11: 00 am Paul Seidler, Nuclear Energy Institute 12: 00 pm Lunch 1: 00 pm Carlette Tilousi, Havasupai 1: 30 pm Steve Newcomb, Indigenous Law Institute 2: 00 pm Danielle Endres, Ph. D., University of Utah Oral History Project 2: 30 pm Evaluation UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues April 10, 2008 at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Native Community Action Council Table of Contents Opening Prayer: Margene Bullcreek 1 Opening Remarks: Ian Zabarte. 1 Western Shoshone and environmental justice: Treaty of Ruby Valley ( 1863) 3 Native Americans and nuclear issues 5 Margene Bullcreek of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes: history of Private Fuel Storage [ PFS] on reservation lands and effects on Native peoples, environmental racism 7 Joe Kennedy, Chairman of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe: Affected Tribe Status, environmental racism faced by Indian people, federal recognition of Timbisha Shoshone 17 Ian Zabarte: Nuclear Risk Management for Native Communities: history of program, accomplishments, research findings with regard to Native American lifestyles and exposures, importance of collaboration, exposure pathways and dose estimates, public outreach and community education, future areas of address 26 Kenny Anderson: Las Vegas Paiute Tribe: location of reservations, concerns about proponed route of nuclear waste and future of Tribe and Las Vegas Valley 31 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues April 10, 2008 at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada Speakers Margene Bullcreek, Ian Zabarte, Joe Kennedy, Kenny Anderson [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 1, Disc 1. Ian Zabarte: I’d like to ask Margene [ Bullcreek] to give us a prayer and secure some blessings for our work. Margene. Please stand. [ Everyone stands.] Margene Bullcreek: Thank you, Ian, and I’m going to say my prayer in my Shoshone language, and I’m going to ask for God to help us through the agendas today and tomorrow, that we will be able to have a presentation and to remember the things we need to say. [ At this point, Margene Bullcreek prays in the Shoshone language.] Ian Zabarte: Thank you, Margene. [ 00: 01: 09] [ End of Track 1, Disc 1] [ 00: 00: 00] [ Begin Track 2, Disc 1] Ian Zabarte: I want to now ask you to give more of yourself, if you can. I know a lot of you have given the better part of your lives or at least, for myself, at least half of my life, at least all of my adult life I have given to addressing these nuclear issues. We need your best reasoning, and planning. We need the best thoughts and ideas that you have to find alternatives, options, and leverage to appropriately address the nuclear threats and hazards we experience as Native peoples. I think there are three major aspects of this event that are worth noting. First, this event is truly a grassroots event, initiated and organized by the [ Native Community Action Council’s] Nuclear Risk Management for Native Communities project, an organization which is composed of traditional Western Shoshone and Southern Paiute elders. Margene Bullcreek and myself are UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 the members of the board here today. As well as two additional aspects, which are manifest by it taking place here at UNLV. First, it is interdisciplinary with participation from the Department of Environmental Studies, the Department of History, and the Department of Sociology, and the UNLV Law School and Libraries. It’s also a collaboration between tribal stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations, and the university departments mentioned. By each of the individuals and entities participating here today I can confidently declare this event a success. Our agenda is arranged to allow each speaker an opportunity to take their time and not run over other speakers, and we started, probably what an hour late or so but that’s OK because there is time on the agenda and certainly some of us longwinded individuals can cut our presentations down. What’s most important is that you have opportunities to take time and meet face- to- face with the participants here today. We have very good participants in the audience from various views on nuclear issues. I think most of you know that I’ve been involved in these issues for a long time and it’s good to see your faces again, and know that we’re still with it. I think that we have to be. I’ve been involved since I was eighteen, when I realized that my people were suffering the adverse health impacts known to be plausible from exposure to radiation and fallout from nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. My community is downwind, and what I’ve realized, in all of my years, is that everybody on the planet and every living thing is downwind from those tests. I’m sure you have heard the stories and I’m sure you have stories of your own about people in your lives that have been affected by cancer and other adverse health impacts. When asked why I do this work, I explain that I was lucky enough to be born healthy, and when asked how can I accomplish so much with so little, the answer to that is, by not holding anything back. There is nothing that is more important to me than protecting my land and my UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 people. Absolutely nothing. I’m holding nothing back. I have no future in social security. I have no future in a house. I have nothing, if I do not have my land and my people. I can live off that land, I know where it’s at, I know where my house and my home is, I know where I’m going to live when I get old, and I know where I’m going to die, and that’s what I’m fighting to protect. It’s my land and my people. We must address the past, however, regarding nuclear weapons and look at that before we can move on into the future. My people have nothing to lose by doing this and everything to gain, and most importantly to protect our most valuable resource, which is our children. My people are poor, and because they are poor they’re easily controlled and manipulated and that is part of the problem with environmental justice. I want to take a few minutes just to cover the Western Shoshone case from this perspective. The Western Shoshone people have an ongoing warm dispute with the United States government, since the signing of the treaty of peace at Ruby Valley in 1863. When the treaty was signed, America was weak, engaged in a civil war. No one knew what the outcome would be. The United States had to make agreements that could clearly demonstrate its legitimacy and credibility among nations as allies to guarantee payment of gold for armaments to fight the war it [ 00: 05: 00] was then engaged in. The U. S. agreed to pay the Western Shoshone nation five thousand dollars a year for twenty years. The Western Shoshone nation possessed all the interests that the United States sought to acquire through those payments. After the war, the United States did not fulfill the payment schedule. By not fulfilling its obligations, the U. S. has abandoned its rights, sought in the treaty, as would any other party to a contract who does not make their payments. The United States cannot demonstrate any lawful ownership UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 documentation to Western Shoshone treaty lands. You will hear more of this ownership question and its relationship to the siting of Yucca Mountain later. Since 1971, Western Shoshone elder and Western Shoshone National Council representative Carrie Dann has been defending herself from claims of the United States Bureau of Land Management [ BLM] that she is trespassing on Western Shoshone treaty lands. The United States Bureau of Land Management blames Carrie Dann for overgrazing horses and cattle. Carrie’s son Mark [ Dann] has severe mental and physical difficulties, I believe by the result of radiation exposure Carrie Dann received. I believe that the radiation from weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site has exposed vast regions of the Great Basin to radiation, destroying the indigenous plants and creating vulnerabilities in the land that allow noxious and invasive plant species to take hold unchallenged. While there are surely legitimate overgrazing issues, the United States Bureau of Land Management engages in an aggressive strategy calculated to bring about conditions of economic hardship and emotional stress upon the Western Shoshone people, peacefully engaging in their treaty- defined rights as hunters and herdsmen. Former Western Shoshone National Council Chief Raymond Yowell, like Carrie Dann, has had his cattle confiscated, his lifelong work stolen, by the United States government. Now the United States Bureau of Land Management has sent a delinquent grazing fee bill for grazing the cattle they confiscated to the United States Treasury and are taking his social security retirement to pay the delinquent grazing fees. So though overgrazing may be the issue for the United States Bureau of Land Management, I believe the poor quality of the range goes back to nuclear weapons testing. Further impacts may affect wildlife and domestic animals and ultimately the people that live as UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 hunters and herdsmen: Native Americans. We’ll hear more about Native American lifestyle differences and unique exposure pathways, later today. Environmental justice has become an increasingly important policy requirement in federal programs. Environmental justice should not only be a process of identifying potential threats, hazards, and adverse impacts, but also fair distribution of the benefits. What has happened has been an unfair manipulation of tribal communities against each other by researchers seeking to achieve research goals while successfully fulfilling contracts for federal agencies, thereby securing future contracts of federal agencies and their careers. As you will hear today, there are plenty of adverse impacts, hazards, and threats that we as Native Americans experience, however, very few, if any, benefits. We have to create our own opportunities, and that’s very difficult to do. We do not have the resources or opportunities to educate ourselves, study the potential threats, hazards, or adequately defend ourselves against the United States government. We are doing the best we can and we need your help. And again I thank you for coming and giving us the opportunity to share this with you. The issue of nuclear waste storage will be discussed thoroughly today and tomorrow. I will just say that the U. S. does not own Yucca Mountain. For the U. S. to claim ownership of Western Shoshone treaty lands is a fraud and a violation of the peace treaty between our peoples. There are larger foreign policy issues. America’s moral ascendancy is declining fast. I have one final thought for your consideration as a theme to carry through the event. I was comforted by individuals who spoke of Native Americans being left out from the beginning of the nuclear issue, the nuclear problems. In my opinion, being left out of nuclear development activities of the United States has serious impacts to Native American communities. It is an issue of negligence, an act of abuse. Intent to violate and abuse Native American people is manifest in UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 neglect. Gandhi said that poverty is the greatest violence. I believe that negligence is of the same character, a soft abuse that festers like cancer, causing great pain and suffering. As Native Americans we are obligated to take responsibility for the protections of our communities, and especially the future generations. We act in our own interest to transform ourselves from victims to competent advocates in defense of our land and people. I find comfort in not being left out. I appreciate being acknowledged, and not having to fight for that acknowledgement. Thank you for understanding and your commitment, in joining us here in addressing the serious threats, hazards, and potential impacts associated with nuclear development in the Great Basin, from a Native American perspective. [ 00: 10: 00] I want to take a moment to acknowledge Peter Ford who is not here but has been instrumental in coordinating the work of the Native Community Action Council and working with Shoshones for over twenty- five years. I want to also thank Candace Ross, who’s in the back of the room, who’s provided me with the nudges to get this event going and the resources to share information and materials with you. Also I must acknowledge Dottie Shank Barnett, who is outside at the registration table, from the UNLV Environmental Studies Department for organizing the university portion of this event, and similarly prodding me to get it together and wear a tie today. I finally want to thank you, the presenters, for sharing the most important things you possess, your knowledge and your time. [ 00: 10: 46] [ End Track 2, Disc 1] [ 00: 00: 00] [ Begin Track 3, Disc 1] Now we’ll get right to the presentations with Margene Bullcreek, President of the Native Community Action Council from the Skull Valley Goshute site of the proposed Private Fuel Storage [ PFS] for high- level nuclear waste. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 Margene Bullcreek: Thank you. I’m glad to be here and I want to thank, first of all, Ian for arranging all this, public forum. I know his hard work. And I want to thank [ unclear name] for bringing me down here, to be able to be, part of this, I feel, an important forum. And, I also— I’ll just go ahead. I’m Margene Bullcreek. I’m a mother, grandmother, and a great- grandmother. I founded the Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia Awareness [ OGDA] in May 1997 to oppose the licensing of the Private Fuel Storage, limited liability, consortium, high- level radioactive waste, targeted for the Skull Valley Goshute Indians, in Utah. And I’ve lived for the past three decades where I raised my children, my grandchildren, and I’ve raised them in a traditional way, to live in the modern world without giving up our sovereignty. That is important to the reservation. I not only wanted to stop the nuclear waste, in my community, but to stop it from happening in any other Indian community. I’ve also worked towards identifying healthy and genuine economic development opportunities, for my community, as opposed to hosting the nation’s high- level radioactive waste. OK, now the reasons why we oppose the nuclear waste, was because of our sovereignty. When I was a child I was raised and told by my father many times about our creation stories, how to respect our environment, our creatures, our animals. Creation stories that we were told had meanings and that’s why we feel committed to be able to work and talk about environmental injustice. The effects on our community health, is important too because, you know, we didn’t choose to be in a situation with the Nevada Test Site, with the nuclear power, with uranium, you know, and uranium is part of the components that is in the waste storage, you know, to protect the air and water, to protect our future generations so that they would have a chance, to be able to live life. However, it’s sad to know that there are communities that have already been infected by UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 nuclear environmentals, it’s just as important, to be able to base our community, to save future generations, so that they would be aware of what they’re going to be dealt with and how to be able to deal with the effects and the health care that they need. As I said, I’ve talked about racism where, our tribe’s been targeted and deceived to the development of new technology, during Nevada testing. Nuclear power, waste. I’ll just show this radioactive cycle, where all the Native communities have been affected by this. And environmental injustice is when low- income and minority communities are disproportionately targeted by a large corporation and government agency causing adverse human health and environmental effects, and these communities are at tremendous economic and political disadvantage over decisions and process. The Skull Valley Band of Goshutes was approached for high- level waste storage, caused a bitter environmental controversy over how and where to [ 00: 05: 00] safely dispose and issue stockpiles of nuclear fuel. By that I meant that, in our community it has caused division and— I’m stressed. And we’re located seventy miles from Salt Lake. PFS [ Private Fuel Storage, LLC] is promoting the nuclear waste, for our reservation. We’re surrounded by five hazardous waste [ sites] anyway, so why not put a nuclear dump there? So we had the Tooele Army Depot weapons, Envirocare, which is storing low- level radioactive waste, Magcore Magnesium Refinery, Desert Chemical Plant, burning chemical weapons and nerve agents, as well as Dugway Proving Grounds. In 1968 there was a release of an accidental nerve agent when the jet was flying over the reservation and killed six thousand, four hundred sheeps in the valley that belonged to the ranchers and, excuse me, and three— thirty that belonged to my family and we were compensated for that. And there was no studies done, about this. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 Our aboriginal land claim was about five million, nine hundred and fifty- two thousand acres. And then when they opened the land for settlement, for the non- Indians, they made treaties with the tribe in 1912. We were allocated for seventeen thousand, four hundred and forty- four acres. And the large portion of the land, the non- Indians got, and we were left with a small piece to utilize. And then Skull Valley became a permanent homeland, to be protected from intrusion, to raise families, preserve our culture, and preservation of life. And it is said that, because we’ve been targeted from the beginning to be able to have the non- Indians have settlements on large portions of our Indian lands and we were given a small portion because, we weren’t able to utilize the whole portion of United States, so we were given a small piece, depending on the size of our tribe. [ Laughter] Excuse me. PFS, in 1996, we started to, negotiate with them, which is Northern States Power [ Company] of Minnesota, Power of Illinois, Indiana, Power of Michigan, Southern Nuclear Operating Company of Georgia, Consolidated Edison of New York, GPU Nuclear Corporation, Pennsylvania General Field Test and Corporation. And this is State Powers at Prairie Island [ Minnesota], which is now Xcel Energy. And this shows how close Xcel is from the tribe that’s called the Mdewakanton Tribe. And this is their casino here and there’s the Northern States Power, and it’s only like only six hundred yards from where, it is. OK. And then, the plant is still storing casks, at Prairie Island, and, you know, the waste routes are supposed to go to Yucca Mountain, part of the waste. There are forty- eight casks that’s stored now but they had added, a few years ago, added seventeen more casks and then they can’t go more than that. What they’re doing I guess is to be able to stack the waste on top of each other, but after that they have to close down, if there’s no Yucca Mountain. And these are the seventeen casks that they have there, at Prairie Island. And this is the transportation route that everybody’s so familiar UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 with. In 1998. By 2010, maybe too, supposed to be. Retrievable storage. This is the beginning of the high- level nuclear waste that [ 00: 10: 00] was targeted for our reservation. OK, and this was a DOE [ Department of Energy] project, and what they wanted to do was to construct a temporary waste, until a permanent repository is built. DOE will study MRS [ monitored retrievable storage] and must meet EPA [ Environmental Protection Agency] health and safety regulations and get an NRC [ Nuclear Regulatory Commission] license, granted only after full public hearings. The negotiator was appointed by, not surprisingly, President George H. Bush, in charge of negotiating an agreement between the U. S. government community to host the MRS. The negotiator is authorized to seek states, county, or Native American tribe that might be interested in hosting such a facility, in return for compensation. We went through Phase- I- and- II- B grants, one hundred thousand- dollar grant Phase I, one hundred thousand- dollar grant for gathering disseminating information. We went through Phase II with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes for two hundred thousand to produce various ways for our community to assist the project. We were starting to go on Phase II and we were supposed to raise to three million dollars. I didn’t really know about that. But, you know, all this thing was going on but we, in the community didn’t really know what was going on. The first time I heard about this is when I read it in the newspaper, and I says, oh, OK, so, that was one of my first motivation to be able to get involved in this. They expired in 1994, and the community believed, that the Mescalero [ Apache] tribe was the best hope for them because they were dealing with the Mescalero tribe at that time. But they denied it after they had a lecture from the tribal elders. They went through the voting process three times but on the third time they denied it. And then on October fifteenth, the council signed a cooperative agreement with the negotiator’s office, who was Richard Stalling, to streamline the negotiations, but from the start UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 David Leroy’s name was mentioned so I guess he was the one that they picked, but Richard Stalling was the one that our tribe was working with, with their negotiators. Well OK, on December 26, 1996, our chairman signed the preliminary lease agreement. In ’ 97, our council, Leon Bear, Mary Allen, and Rex Allen signed an official lease with PFS. In 1997 BIA [ Bureau of Indian Affairs] approves the lease. And they signed for eight hundred and forty acres of our reservation land. Not everyone in our general council meetings were able to see the lease and the monetary amount of the contract. It was all blacked out. And the plan would have cost up to a hundred and thirty million. And, four thousand casks were to be sent to our reservation. Each cask contains ten metric tons. The shipping cask was supposed to happen through Haul- Tech. Those people were asking what type of cask they were going to use to ship it. I don’t know whether this is supposed to be three different types here but I know Haul- Tech was the main one that they had talked about. OK, and these are the plants that Xcel owns, PFS companies. They became PFS after they did an agreement with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes. Actually Xcel was the one that was behind the whole thing. And this a little cartoon that somebody made for us. And this is a cartoon that, you know, all the Native communities should have. [ Laughter] And the struggle. You know we have our own challenges as a tribe to deal with, which includes our health care, our education and financial resources, because for thirty years our council has been sitting back on developing these resources for our tribe because they were really concentrating on PFS to come about and so they were holding back on all this, and some of us they, denied our dividends that was for— and truthfully, they rendered our sovereignty to UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 [ 00: 15: 00] avoid accountability. And they tried to abandon the waste on a traditional reservation and this is the government, living with a bunch that we can’t possibly bear. OK. Nuclear free zone. We had a gathering, a Great Basin Nuclear Free gathering on our reservation, and we had a lot of supporters that was there, IEN [ Indigenous Environmental Network], HEAL [ Healthy Environment Alliance] Utah, Shundahai was the one that helped, Corbin Harney and his people were helping us to have this gathering, there. And we came up with this declaration. And, our medicine wheel is something that we really don’t talk about but it’s there, because it’s part of our religion, the very core that we believe in, and then all this environmental effects that’s coming from, whether it’s nuclear, uranium, oil development, it’s all affecting not only the Native Americans but everyone else in our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual beings. And this is what I borrowed from our little NCA project, this little picture, I meant to say. We’ve already experienced cancer and health problems from the nuclear testing, and we didn’t want this to be the sort of thing to be happening within our community. That has to do with radiation. And it’s all a family there. Radiation, uranium, Nevada Test Site fallouts. OK. And these of course are the different components that could be affected. OK. But before I go into the victory, I just want to say that, MRS had targeted our community to be able to bring this high- level nuclear waste dump that was supposed to go to Yucca Mountain. And our tribe went forward as far as economic development, but, they thought with all of the monies that we’re going to receive we’re going to be helped in the areas that we needed help on as far as being a reservation and being a sovereign nation, to be able to have our UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 programs and resources for our communities. But actually what they were doing, and it’s true, that’s why it’s called environmental racism, is that they didn’t really tell us what’s really behind this, that they wanted to target us because of our sovereignty issues where the state can interfere, and the State of Utah had a lot of court cases that was thrown out of the courts because of this but the only thing that, after the NRC made their decisions to and approved the license, the State of Utah appealed, and that held on to it for a while, and we were going to appeal, OGD with our attorneys Larry Paul and Mark EchoHawk, we were ready to appeal as well on that decision but we never got to that point. We did have other court cases that was yet to be heard, and some of them had to be part of the decision that [ Department of the] Interior [ DOI] made. And, what they made that decision was, there were two decisions, and it’s important that I do read this, we worked on this, this is something new for me, but, you know, it’s good because, you can be able to— I won’t be able to forget certain things that I usually do when I’m up here. Well anyway, their decision was made on— excuse me, I know I got it here somewhere— well anyway their [ 00: 20: 00] decision was made, on the fact because of our culture, and our traditional beliefs and they thought that it wouldn’t be a good idea to have this effects on our small community. And the other one was a BLM [ Bureau of Land Management] decision, because of the right- of- way, that they needed to build the transportation which was supposed to come from the interstate, to the reservation through a railway, and the wilderness area that they had, they just passed the wilderness law to be part of the, what was it, Wilderness Act that they have? Anyway, that stopped the waste from coming through there too. So those were the decisions that was made. Oh, there it is. I’m sorry. We did put it in. OK. They rejected the Xcel lease, “ Department of the Interior Secretary Dick [