Neither the consortium or the Goshutes will say what the deal costs. The consortium has promised to build a cultural center on the reservation to revive the tribe's fading language and crafts, Bear says, and has pledged to give Goshutes and other tribes the first shot at about 40 jobs at the site. The money is sorely needed. Most of the estimated 150 Goshutes have fled the 17,000-acre reservation. Fewer than 30 remain, most living in a tiny cluster of run-down trailers.
Jobs are virtually nonexistent.
It's not that the tribe hasn't tried. But some Goshutes say the plan is tearing apart the tribe. It's a far cry from the old days, when thousands of Goshutes roamed the Utah and Nevada desert, gathering native plants and hunting deer. That changed in the first half of the 19th century, when the first Mormon settlers arrived, pushing the Goshutes west into the dry, desolate Skull Valley. Environmentalists say that the spent fuel should be left at nuclear plants and they should be shut when they run out of storage space.