ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY:
CASE STUDY OF A LAND-USE CONFLICT IN SKULL VALLEY, UTAH MS Word format
Noriko Ishiyama
Ph.D. Candidate
Rutgers University
Department of Geography
54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue
Piscataway, NJ 08854
E-MAIL: norikoi@eden.rutgers.edu
Acknowledgement: I would to acknowledge the following sources
for funding this project: Fulbright All Grant Scholarship, Association
of American University Women International Fellowship, Matsushita
International Foundation Research Grant, National Science Foundation
Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award, and Rutgers University Dissertation
Fellowship. I would like to thank Robert Lake for his guidance to
develop this paper and project. Many thanks to Sandra Baptista, Matthew
Gandy, Kazuto Oshio, Laura Pulido, Rick Schroeder, Phil Steinberg,
Kimberly Tallbear, Mervyn Tano, and Elvin Wyly for their helpful suggestions
on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank Mike Davis for providing
background information and materials and Mike Siegel for technical
assistance. Acknowledging their generous assistance, all shortcomings
are the sole responsibility of the author.
(Antipode forthcoming)
Introduction
Since the early 1900s, the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, a
small tribe of 124 members in a desolate desert in Tooele County,
Utah, has antagonized the governor, politicians, and citizens of Utah,
environmentalists, and environmental justice advocates with a proposal
to host temporary storage of high-level radioactive waste on the reservation.
Having been historically neglected and isolated in what has come to
be a toxic desert in northwestern Utah, the Goshute leaders argue
that this is the only choice left for the tribe to survive. They emphasize
the notion of tribal sovereignty and reject assertions that they are
simply the powerless victims of environmental injustice. The current
land-use controversy reveals unresolved dilemmas regarding self-determination
and environmental justice as they are structured in the capitalist
political economy and the history of colonialism.
This paper examines the development of the Skull Valley land-use debate
and ultimately poses a challenging question: What is environmental
justice in the context of questions of tribal sovereignty? The case
study based on archival research and interviews with various players
in the conflict challenges the predominant tradition of environmental
justice scholarship, which emphasizes the inequitable distribution
of hazards in low-income minority communities (Bryant 1995; Bryant
and Mohai 1992; Bullard 1990, 1993, 1994). The complicated politics
of environmental justice in relation to tribal sovereignty as situated
within the history and geography of Skull Valley contradict oversimplified
tales of distributive injustice. Rather, political ecological dynamics
closely intersect with issues of self-determination and identity formation
- at and across different geographic scales - to shape the geography
of environmental injustice.
The Skull Valley case study complicates widely accepted understanding
of environmental justice. When the Department of Energy (DOE) began
looking for a place to site interim storage of high-level radioactive
waste, some communities showed interest in accepting the facility
in return for economic compensation. The majority of such interested
communities have been American Indian tribes. Calling attention to
the historical pattern of colonialism, some academics and activists
have emphasized the notion of environmental racism in explaining the
correlation between the locations of ecological contamination and
tribal nations (Churchill 1997; Grinde and Johansen 1995; Laduke 1999;
Laduke and Churchill 1992). These writers' contribution to illuminating
the environmental and social problems threatening Native America is
significant. However, the discourse of environmental racism has a
pitfall in that it develops a theory of environmental justice based
primarily on the dichotomy of racist white society on the one hand
and victimized tribes on the other. Nevertheless, struggles for environmental
justice, as they are intertwined with politics of tribal sovereignty
and identities developed in a political-geographic context of colonialism,
raise a much more complex set of issues.
Early environmental justice literature concerning environmental destruction
on tribal lands does not properly address the issue of sovereignty
in spite of its significance for achieving social justice for tribes.
Some academics even questioned the legitimacy of tribal governments
on the grounds that they made harmful environmental decisions for
economic benefits (Hall 1994; Shrader-Frechette 1996). In contrast,
an American Indian law scholar, Dean Suagee (1994; 1999), harshly
criticized some environmental justice advocates for not understanding
the unique sovereign status of tribes. Other law scholars have explored
the potential conflict between environmental justice advocacy and
the tribal governments' protection of their sovereign rights (Foster
1998; Gover and Walker 1992; Louis 1997; Sachs 1996). Without acknowledging
the intersection of tribal sovereignty and environmental justice in
the context of historical colonialism, environmental justice scholars
fail to address the issue of community self-determination, potentially
leading to an uneasy relationship between a struggling tribe and environmental
justice advocates.
This paper first presents a critical review of the existing scholarly
literature of environmental justice to clarify the potential contribution
of the study. After a brief discussion of US nuclear waste policies
in relation to American Indian tribes, which sets up an analytical
basis, this study examines the locational conflict in Skull Valley,
Utah. The analysis starts with an introduction of the history of the
Skull Valley Goshute tribe as well as the historical geography of
Skull Valley as a toxic haven. The overview of peoples and the landscape
of Skull Valley establishes a significant context to illustrate the
struggles for self-determination at different geo-political scales
in relation to the politics of environmental justice, tribal sovereignty,
and American Indian identities. The section focused on the pursuit
of self-determination examines the politics of tribal sovereignty
broadly in the environmental justice movement and then specifically
on the Skull Valley land-use debate. The final part of the paper explores
the central and yet extremely difficult question: What is environmental
justice? The conclusion is not aimed at providing a simple answer
but encourages environmental justice scholars to redirect their focus
to address historical and structural contexts.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RESEARCH
The environmental justice movement pursues a wide range of agendas
that have significant implications for politics, legislation, and
social activism. The majority of the existing academic literature,
however, does not address the political and historical complexity
of environmental justice, simplifying activism within a dichotomous
framework of environmental racism and/or its focus to a superficial
distribution of hazards. The following section critically examines
these issues in order to elucidate the significance of 1) developing
studies on ideological and structural racism; 2) going beyond the
notion of distributive justice; and 3) refining the concept of procedural
justice in relation to communities' access to and capacity for self-determination.
The notion of environmental racism requires a critical clarification.
As employed in some of the literature, this notion implies the existence
of a simple clear dichotomy between racist white society and communities
of color, while neglecting the difficult dilemmas regarding serious
issues of internal power structure, identity politics, and ideological
disparities that confront communities of color. Pulido's (1996 a)
critique of the earlier literature is helpful for the reconsideration
of environmental racism. She points out the theoretical flaws in simplifying
racism as overt actions, neglecting racism as an ideology, and portraying
racism as fixed without mobility or change. By contrast, her (2000)
own recent study of environmental racism in the context of urban development
in Los Angeles illustrates the hegemonic nature of racism, explaining
the distinction between racism expressed through direct words and
actions, and subtle racism expressed through ideas and structural
forces. Studies of environmental justice carry potentials to elaborate
the analysis of institutional, ideological, and structural dynamics
and practices of racism.
Furthermore, environmental justice studies need to go beyond the concept
of distributive justice. The existing scholarship has been dominated
by theory of distributive justice, which problematizes the unequal
allocation of hazards based on the racial and economic characteristics
of communities. This theory avoids issues of social relations and
historical, cultural, and ideological contexts that are inherent within
capitalist geographies. Moreover, as observed by Dobson (1998: 20),
environmental justice scholarship within the framework of distributive
justice reduced the concept of environment to be "no more - and
certainly no less - than a particular form of the goods and bads that
society must divide among its members." The theoretical reduction
of the notion of environment made the environmental justice scholarship
vulnerable to easy criticism. For example, some academics challenged
the environmental justice movement with chicken-and-egg logic according
to which the key question becomes: Which came first, the minorities
or the facilities (Been 1994; Been and Gupta 1997; Huebner 1998)?
Others purport to show that hazardous facilities are not disproportionately
located in low-income minority neighborhoods (Anderton et al. 1994,
1997). Rejecting such limited scope of analysis focused on superficial
outcome of distribution, recent studies with a critical eye toward
political economy articulate the social contexts that underlie and
produce environmental justice problems (Faber 1998; Heiman 1996; Lake
1996; Low and Gleeson 1998; Hunold and Young 1998).
In order to clarify the contexts of environmental justice, the concept
of procedural justice should be elaborated. Lake (1996: 169) notes
that "redistributing outcomes will not achieve environmental
justice unless it is accompanied and, indeed, preceded by a procedural
redistribution of power in decision-making." Examination of the
social processes and the political-economic structure through which
communities participate in, or are excluded from, decision-making
(for example, in regards to the production, siting, and management
of radioactive waste) illustrates the determinants of environmental
justice. Moreover, as emphasized by Schroeder (2000), the conception
of justice raises a variety of questions with regards to, for instance,
rights to livelihood, enhancement of infrastructure for democratic
political processes, and acknowledgement of cultural diversity. Accordingly,
the notion of procedural justice should convey a broad range of social
processes, which develop the scope of communities' rights to self-determination
at different geographic scales. The following case study may contribute
to the theoretical understanding of environmental justice by elucidating
complicated socio-historical and political-economic contexts for the
Skull Valley land-use debate.
US NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY AND AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES
Post-WWII industrial prosperity and the rise of nuclear technology
have left American society an unwanted and lethal legacy - radioactive
waste, accumulating every day in both military and commercial nuclear
sites. Most high-level radioactive waste is produced in commercial
power plants, which generate 20 percent of the electricity for the
American public.
In the 1970's, a growing sense of urgency finally compelled Congress
to address the nuclear waste issue, since it was evident that numerous
electric power plants would otherwise have to be closed down. In 1982,
Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), mandating that
the DOE find a permanent repository site for spent nuclear fuel. The
NWPA authorized the federal government to take responsibility for
radioactive waste disposal (Davenport 1993; Raeber 1989). A 1987 amendment
to the NWPA terminated the further investigation of potential sites
for a permanent high-level radioactive waste repository, except for
Yucca Mountain in Nevada. This Congressional decision has been controversial,
and Nevadans charge that their state was selected for political rather
than scientific reasons. Not surprisingly, the State of Nevada, the
Western Shoshone tribe, which has traditionally treasured this region
as a sacred place, and environmental and anti-nuclear organizations
have vigorously opposed the federal government's political maneuver.
In addition to proposing a permanent disposal site in Nevada, the
1987 act enabled the DOE to build Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS)
facilities for the temporary storage of radioactive waste and spent
nuclear fuel. At the same time, the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator
(ONWN) was established to find communities that would accept MRS facilities
in return for monetary grants. On May 3, 1991, the ONWN sent requests
for proposals, including three stages of study grants plus compensation
packages, to all states, counties, and 535 federally recognized American-Indian
tribes.
The majority of the communities that showed interests in the MRS project
were American Indian tribes (Erickson et al. 1995; Sachs 1996). For
the Phase I study grant, which provided $100,000 to each community,
sixteen tribes and four non-tribal communities applied.1
Two of the non-tribal communities were interested in further study,
but state governors issued vetoes to prevent them from doing so.2
Five months after the issue of the Phase I study grant, nine tribes
applied for Phase II A study grants of $200,000.3 In August 1993,
the Mescalero Apache Tribe of New Mexico and the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone
Tribe of Nevada and Oregon applied for the Phase II B grant which
was supposed to offer $2,800,000. However, this grant was never awarded
because Congress pulled funding to the ONWN for the 1994 fiscsal year.
The federal government's failure to site an MRS facility under the
ONWN project did not prevent the electric utilities from seeking a
community to host the radioactive waste facility. Shortly after the
DOE's failure to receive adequate funding from Congress, nuclear energy
corporations and several tribes began pursuing direct negotiations,
unmediated by the federal government. The nuclear power utilities
failed in their negotiation with the Mescalero Apache tribe in April
1996. As a result, Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a limited liability
company composed of eight electric utilities, started negotiating
with the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians for a leasing contract
to locate an interim storage facility on their reservation in Tooele
County, Utah.4 Despite the keen competition for study grants earlier
on, the Skull Valley Goshute Indians became by 1996 the only entity
still seeking to accept a temporary storage site for commercial high-level
radioactive waste.
SKULL VALLEY BAND OF GOSHUTE INDIANS
In the contemporary cultural landscape cultivated predominantly by
the Mormon population in Utah, Indian tribes have been the most invisible
population. The executive director at the State of Utah Division of
Indian Affairs described the invisibility of Utah Indian tribes as
follows:
Indians are invisible in Utah. Indians do not even exist here. If
you go to
Arizona or New Mexico, for instance, you look at the landscape and
you
Can tell that Indians have existed in the past and the present. You
can see
that Indians live there. There are Indian articrafts and Indian shops.
Here,
you can see only one monolithic cultural landscape dominated by one
religion. People have only superficial and paternalistic understanding
of
Indian tribes.
The sanitized landscape of today's Salt Lake City hardly reminds us
of Utah's colonial history. In the nineteenth century, Indian tribes
were first militarily subjugated and then made the target of Mormon
conversion efforts. Since then, the state's Indian tribes have largely
been neglected, if not forgotten by Utah political leaders and the
general public.
On the other hand, American Indian tribes occupy a significant role
in Mormon doctrine. As a Mormon historian, Juanita Brooks (1944: 1),
pointed out, "the Mormon philosophy regarding the Indians is
unique: the Mormon treatment of their dark-skinned neighbors was determined
largely by that ideology." The following quote from The Book
of Mormon represents the fundamental core of Mormon ideology with
regards to the history and anthropology of American Indians tribes:
And he [Lord God] had caused the cursing to come upon them [Lamanites
(later American Indians)], yea, even a sore cursing, because of their
iniquity.
For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they
had
become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly
fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people
the
Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus
saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto
thy
people, save they shall repent of their iniquities…And because of
their
cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of
mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of
prey
(Nephi 5).
Lamanites represent Euro-American Mormon's lost brothers, who became
a "fallen people
Awaiting the arrival of their white brothers who would once again
redeem them and make them a great people" (Gottlieb & Wiley
1986: 158). Accordingly, the traditionally indifferent Euro-American
attitude towards Indians is, in Mormon Utah, intertwined with a paternalistic
and racist philosophy supported in detail by The Book of the Mormon.
The Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians is a small tribe of 124 members,
maintaining an 18,000 acre reservation located approximately 45 miles
southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. Goshute Indians have lived in today's
Tooele County since A.D. 1200 (Blanthorn 1998). The harsh environment
of the region shielded the tribe from outside influence, encouraging
maintenance of traditional life style and, moreover, protecting them
from the encroachment of Euro-Americans until large scale Mormon settlement
started in the 1840s. Later, in spite of an 1863 treaty which acknowledged
the existence of the Skull Valley Band, the federal government tried
to relocate the tribe from its territory during the late 19th century
to consolidate them with the Confederated tribe of Goshutes in Obapha,
which is located at the border of Utah an Nevada, and with the Ute
tribe (Crum 1987). As a result of the tribe's resistance to relocation,
a 1917 executive order finally approved the Skull Valley Band of Goshute
Reservation as an independent tribal nation. The nomadic tribe, who
used to roam a wide range of Salt Lake, Tooele, and Skull Valleys,
ended up being provided only a small portion of land useless to agricultural
settlers.
The Goshutes have been living modest lives, isolated in the arid desert
and forgotten by the mainstream society after the initial period of
colonization. They used to hunt and gather the limited resourcees
available in their homeland, efficiently adjusting to the ecology
of the desert and relocating themselves as seasons rotated (Defa 1979).
The Euro-American settlement transformed the ecological system of
the desert, introducing horses and mules, which overgrazed the grasses,
and therefore, lessened the prevalence of seeds which the tribe gathered.
Finding hungry Goshutes digging roots from the ground, settlers called
them 'diggers.' Other Indian tribes did not acknowledge the Goshutes
as equals, either, at Utes used to call them poor people (Papanikolas
1994: 12). Despised, feared, and neglected, Goshutes demanded little
from the outside society, living quietly for a long time.
The reservation community, however, has been struggling to survive,
suffering the legacies of colonialism. Only twenty-four of the 124
members currently live on the reservation. The reservation has not
attracted major business or industry, except for a small Pony Express
convenience store and the tribe's leasing contract with a rocket engine
testing facility on the reservation. Many have left the reservation,
seeking opportunities and jobs elsewhere. The tribal leaders, therefore,
have argued that the PFS project may enable the tribe to pursue sustainable
development as a united community.
In the 1900's, the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes became significantly
more visible due largely to the leaders' declaration to welcome a
temporary storage facility for high-level radioactive waste into their
reservation. Suddenly, the invisible tribe isolated in a desolate
desert presented a political and ecological threat to Utah politicians
and the public. The decision to sign a contract with PFS appeared
out of the blue for Utah politicians, but for the Skill Valley Goshute
tribe, the project was completely consistent with the environmental
history of Tooele County, Utah.
TOXIC DESERT: HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF COLONIALISM
The landscape of Skull Valley symbolizes the historical subjugation
of people and the environment pursued within a capitalist political
economy by federal and state governments as well as by commercial
industry. Skull Valley and Tooele County as a hole first became home
to ecologically undesirable facilities in the post-WWII period.6 A
rancher living next to the Goshute Indian Reservation called his homeland
"a toxic box."7 Mike Davis (1998: 35) described Tooele County
as the "nation's greatest concentration of hyper-hazardous and
ultra-deadly materials." Sociologist Valerie L. Kuletz (1998)
illustrated the federal government's creation of "national sacrifice
zones" in the American West for the purpose of fulfilling the
military and industrial interests over those of local communities.
In her analysis, Tooele County occupies a significant part of this
sacrificed geography.
Several federal military territories surround the Skull Valley Goshute
Reservation. Open-air nerve agent tests, as well as chemical and biological
weapon tests and incineration have been conducted on these military
reserves. The Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele County stores 768,400
artillery shells filled with sarin gas, 29,600 artillery shells of
mustard gas, and 22,700 land mines filled with VX gas (Center of the
American West 1997: 136). As indicated by Kevin Fedarko (1999: 117),
the Pentagon estimates that a serious accident could kill as many
as 89,000 people in the surrounding area. In 1968, more than six thousand
sheep died after a nerve gas leak from an airplane conducting open-air
experiments with hazardous chemical and biological agents; their dead
bodies were buried in the reservation territory.
Seeking to promote job growth and increase revenues,
both Tooele County and the State of Utah host numerous environmental
hazards in the region. Commercial facilities, including hazardous
waste incinerators and low-level radioactive and mixed waste disposal
facilities, are located in the vicinity of the reservation. According
to environmental law scholar Michael Gerrard (1995), Tooele County
commissioners allowed chemical weapons to be incinerated in the Tooele
Army Depot in exchange for twenty million dollars to build a hospital.
They also established the West Desert Hazardous Industry Area, which
"created more than nine hundred new jobs and brings in $2 million
in annual 'mitigation' fees, which have allowed the county to freeze
its property taxes" (119). The State of Utah supported this zoning
project in the early 1980's in order to relocate uranium tailings
from densely populated Salt Lake County to the barren desert in Tooele
County.
Tooele County politicians have been consistent with the county's previous
environmental policy, encouraging the PFS project to move forward.
In the beginning, county commissioners did not openly make public
statements concerning the Goshute project but, apparently, they were
trying to get a contract of their own with PFS. In May, 2000, the
commissioners signed an agreement with PFS, which would provide the
county up to three hundred million dollars. According to an article
published in The Salt Lake Tribune, one of the commissioners explained
that the commission would ot be able to prevent the facility from
coming and, therefore, they agreed to get a deal which would provide
the county with some legal and financial rights (Fahys 2000). The
county became entitled to receive lucrative financial benefits, while
asserting that public safety would be its highest priority.
The existing waste and military facilities have caused serious pollution
problems, while also providing some short-term economic benefits.
According to Chip War (Nuclear
Regulatory Commission 1998), the spokesperson for a local environmental
advocacy group, West Desert HEAL, MagCorp's magnesium refinery in
Tooele County emits 85 percent of the point source chlorine gas emitted
in the nation. "More than 33 pounds of toxic pollution per capita
is emitted each year in Utah," he points out, "compared
to a national average of just under 6 pounds per capita a year"
(Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1998). Since the facilities provide
tremendous economic benefits, these facilities have been tolerated
and even sought after by local municipalities.
In the decision-making processes that have resulted in a contaminated
Tooele environment, neither the federal nor the state governments
invited the participation of the Goshute Indian Tribe. The desert
was seen as desolate and its residents were invisible to
policy-makers at larger geographic and political scales. Skull Valley
Goshute chairman pointed out the exclusion of the tribe in the spatial
construction of environmental injustice as follows:
"They've never asked us for our permission when they built all
these facilities around our reservation."8 The tribe's distrust
of outside communities has therefore grown severe, which in the end
causes the Skull Valley Band to be even more politically isolated.
In keeping with the political tactic of the federal and state governments,
Goshute leaders did not consult with any neighboring communities in
the process of developing the plan to host a temporary storage of
high-level radioactive waste. As a result, the tribe has encountered
harsh objections from the State of Utah, environmentalists, environmental
justice advocates, other American Indian tribes and organization,
and even some of its own members. Despite its notorious environmental
policies, some of the strongest opposition to the Goshute tribal project
has come from the state government. Governor Mike Leavitt issued a
state executive order in April, 1997, creating a task force opposed
to the PFS facility. At the same time, he established the Office of
High-Level Nuclear Waste Storage Opposition within the Utah Department
of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Since then, Leavitt has been pursuing
an "over-my-dead-body" policy to prevent high-level radioactive
waste storage.
The governor and other Utah Policy makers resent that the State of
Utah has been excluded from the environmental decision-making processes
developed at both tribal and federal levels. Since federally recognized
Indian tribes have environmental regulatory authority over their own
land, the state does not have jurisdiction within the Skull Valley
Goshute Reservation. Not having any legal authority over the tribe's
political and environmental decision-making processes has troubled
Utah political leaders. In addition, the history of Utah's exclusion
from nuclear policies goes back to the 1950s, when the US military's
nuclear bombing tests in Nevada were conducted only when the wind
was blowing in the direction of Utah. As a result, Southern Utah citizens
have been victimized by the Cold War defense policies of the US government
and suffer high rates of cancer and reproductive problems (Ball 1986,
Fuller 1984).
The history of nuclear weapon tests and the downwinders, described
by regional writer Terry Tempest Williams (1991) as the painful experiences
of the "Clan of One-Breasted Women," have quite reasonably
made Utah policy makers extremely sensitive toward nuclear facilities.
Chip Ward (1999) witnessed Utah policy makers sharing their personal
stories of losing relatives from cancer at the Utah Legislature meeting
in 1998. Indeed, the governor himself has experienced such pain and
has developed strong suspicion toward the federal government. He stated:
"I am from there [Southern Utah]. They [people from the federal
government] told us that it was safe. It was clearly not safe. I saw
my schoolmates dying from cancer and leukemia. Herds of sheep dies
in one day."9 Behind the strong testimonies
of the governor as he protested the PFS nuclear waste facility lie
Utah's historical antipathy towards federal nuclear policies that
have sacrificed Mormon downwinders to the national interest.
The historical geography of Tooele County and the State of Utah as
a whole, reflecting years of mass destruction and exploitation of
the environment, including peoples and societies, provides the context
for the contested political ecology and the pursuit of environmental
justice. Having witnessed Tooele County's environmental history of
colonialism, the Skull Valley Goshute tribal leaders realize that
Utah politicians have adamantly fought against their project for political
rather than ecological concerns. The tribe's decision to welcome nuclear
waste has raised difficult issues involving environmental justice,
tribal sovereignty and retention of Goshute community and identity,
the state government's gear of not having control over tribal land
and its resentment against federal nuclear policies, the federal government's
legal responsibility to find a dumping place for nuclear waste, friction
among tribal members, and the political ecology of the production
of nuclear waste.
STRUGGLES FOR SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE POLITICS OF TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY
In addition to the paradoxical dynamics cultivated in the historical
geography of colonialism, the Skull Valley locational conflict conveys
challenging questions for the environmental justice movement with
its complex politics of tribal sovereignty. In order to explicate
tensions over rights to tribal sovereignty and their social as well
as ethical implications, this section illustrates 1) the politics
of tribal sovereignty in the environmental justice movement and 2)
struggles over tribal sovereignty and environmental justice specifically
in the Skull Valley land-use dispute.
Politics of tribal sovereignty in the environmental justice movement
The concept of tribal sovereignty has essentially defined the politics
regarding struggles for self-determination among actors involved with
the Skull Valley environmental management as well as the siting of
environmental hazards in tribal nations in the United States. Sovereignty
recognized by treaties and the United States constitution does not
represent something given to the tribe but rather is what tribes have
retained throughout the tragic history of colonialism. As Deloria
and Lytle (1998) state, self-government of tribes has been "a
product of the historical process" required for tribal political
survival. Retention of sovereignty, therefore, means the survival
of tribes, which hold unique legal and political status as independent
nations within the United States.
American Indian activists engaged in the environmental justice movement
have
explicitly addressed the importance of sovereignty (Pulido 1996b).
They participated in the process of drafting Principles of Environmental
Justice during the first National People of Color Environmental Leadership
Summit in 1991. Principle 11 (Newton 1996: 156-158) makes a clear
statement: "Environmental justice must recognize a special legal
and natural relationship of Native People to the U.S. government through
treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty
and self-determination." This principle emphasizes the significance
of sovereignty which makes American Indian tribes distinctive from
other ethnic minorities fighting against environmental injustice in
terms of the political strategy for activism.
Environmental justice activists have demanded that tribes get appropriate
federal assistance in order to establish infrastructure equivalent
to that of state governments to develop sound environmental programs
to protest outside industry's attempt to damage the ecology of tribal
land. The director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Tom Goldtooth
(1995), pointed out that the EPA had failed to acknowledge the sovereign
status of tribal governments entitled to receive funds to develop
environmental management of their own until 1984. Consequently, he
clarified that most tribes were severely behind state governments
in environmental infrastructure development (147). Grassroots activists
hold a strong conviction to protect tribal sovereignty, struggling
to develop the political-economic and legislative infrastructure for
participatory democracy.
At the same time, American Indian activism for social and environmental
justice faces a challenging question over who has legitimate rights
to realize tribal sovereignty. Grassroots environmental activists
tend to question the legitimacy of tribal representatives when they
do not share the same ecological philosophies. Goldtooth revealed
an ideological and political disagreement over tribal sovereignty
among indigenous communities: "We as indigenous grassroots are
the most protective of our sovereignty and do not hide behind it or
use it as a cloak or shield like some of our Tribal governmental leaders.
Some of our Tribal leaders use sovereignty to protect them from criticism
or legal attack on tribal developments that are environmentally unsound."10
Grace Thorpe (1996), another key American Indian figure in the environmental
justice movement, criticized tribal leaders who support nuclear waste
sites in Indian nations for "selling our sovereignty." While
recognizing the significance of protecting tribal sovereignty from
various outside threats, tribal and grassroots leaders hardly share
a consensus on the strategic process to fortify it.
Some indigenous grassroots activists have adopted the romanticized
ethnic identity of American Indians as stewards of the environment
for the purpose of justifying their right to self-determination in
environmental management. They have utilized what Pulido (1998) calls
"ecological legitimacy" rooted in cultural essentialism
to empower and establish solidarity in the movement. Tom Goldtooth
asserted: "There are ideological differences with the mentality
of our Indian 'relatives' who have decided to follow the 'American
dream.' The American dream is about money and power. It is about owning
the land….Indigenous Peoples don't think this way. We are only caretakers
of this great sacred land."11 Cultural essentialism in the formation
of American-Indian identities has played a significant role in developing
the environmental justice movement. Nevertheless, it has promoted
the problematic generalization of a culturally diverse population
according to the stereotype and dismissed voices of those who do not
share the same ecological views. This tension concerning tribal sovereignty
intertwined with the definition of American-Indian ethnic identities
establishes the context of intensified political battles concerning
the Skull Valley land-use debate.
Struggles over tribal sovereignty and environmental justice in the
Skull Valley conflict
In the Skull Valley land-use debate, struggles for self-determination
intertwined with the politics of tribal sovereignty and Goshute ethnic
identity contain the potential to clash with the agenda of the environmental
justice movement. The Goshute tribal leaders have explicitly expressed
their apprehension regarding the paternalistic implications suggested
by environmental justice advocates that Goshutes have been the victims
of environmental injustice. Instead, they have emphasized the tribe's
capacity for environmental management and its right to self-determination
based on tribal sovereignty. The Skull Valley Goshute Tribe Executive
Office (1995: 66) published a forceful statement arguing that "the
charges of 'environmental racism' and the need to 'protect' and 'save'
us smack of patronism. This attitude implies we are not intelligent
enough to make our own business and environmental decisions."
Their position contradicts the stereotype of American Indians as helpless
victims and claims that the tribe is in charge of the use of their
land.
Tribal identity politics intertwined with the process of defining
sovereignty has clearly influenced the environmental decision-making
of the Skull Valley Goshutes. The leaders' demand for political acknowledgement
of sovereignty has been a principle step in tribal identity formation.
The New York Times reported a sensational remark made by the tribal
chairman: "I don't belong to two nations. I belong to one - the
Skull Valley Goshute Nation" (Egan 1998). The strength of his
identity as a Goshute citizen has influenced his use of tribal sovereignty:
"We are alive and well and a sovereign nation. And we're using
that sovereignty to attract the only business we can get to come here"
(Egan 1998). The tribe's utilization of sovereignty for a business
deal contradicts the socially constructed image of American Indians
as perfect preservationists.
Not everyone in the tribe, however, shares the ideology of the tribal
leaders. Opponents within the tribe have utilized the perspective
of indigenous ecology and environmental justice to justify their position
as traditionalists opposed to tribal leaders. Margene Bullcreek, identifying
herself as a tribal traditionalist organized an opposing group in
1997. With financial support from the State of Utah, another antagonist,
Sammy Blackbear, has iniitiated litigation against the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, which has approved the governance of the present leadership.
Similar to Bullcreek, Blackbear stresses his spiritual tie with the
Goshute land, which has held sacred meaning to him and his family.
Identity politics and the social process of defining the meaning of
tribal sovereignty
Have played significant parts in the development of political actions
pursued by tribal members with distinct beliefs. The opponents have
different visions of tribal sovereignty than do their leaders. Bullcreek
explained her perception of sovereignty as follows: "Sovereignty
means who we are. We need to protect who we are. Our tribal leaders
are taking traditional cultures away from us, using the corporation
language. They are taking away some spirit, which has always been
in the tribe."12 Although she considers the maintenance of sovereignty
important, she is fundamentally against the PFS-tribal project to
host nuclear waste.
In contrast to the tribal leaders, the Goshute opponents have been
networking broadly with grassroots environmental justice groups and
individual activists, including the Indigenous Environmental Network
and Grade Thorpe, to confront tribal leaders' policies. The opponents'
claims to represent the traditional Goshutes entitled to rights to
defend ancestral land parallels the position of graddroots activists
in the national environmental justice movement. The philosophical
differences within the tribe and the contradictory relationship developed
between various tribal members and the environmental justice advocates
have made the Skull Valley land-use conflict even more difficult to
resolve.
The issue of tribal sovereignty in Skull Valley has played a crucial
role in determining the relationship between the tribe and the State
of Utah. In spite of its notorious environmental history, the State
of Utah has adamantly opposed the Goshute-PFS project. The tribe has
been frustrated that the State has tried to intervene in the PFS project
on the reservation, even though the state has no legal authority.
As the tribal chairman argued: "The reservation isn't part of
Utah. Utah doesn't tax it, and has no business on it unless we invite
them. Utah has to understand our position as a sovereign nation"
(Fedarko 1999: 122).
The political representatives from the State of Utah, however, have
little understanding
of the complex meanings and practices of trial sovereignty. For example,
a Republication Congressman from Utah, Merril Cook, has opposed the
tribal project, arguing that "something is dead wrong when a
small group of people can ignore the will of 90 percent of our state….I
don't think this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind (Egan 1998).
It's just not right, this use of sovereignty. The implications are
frightening for us as a nation." Cook's attack on
tribal sovereignty illustrates the classic conflict between state
governments and tribes over the control of policy making on tribal
land.
Ironically enough, Utah state officials have used the notion of environmental
justice to justify their opposition against the PFS-tribal project.
Governor Leavitt, testifying at a hearing organized by Merril Cook
in December 1997, stated that "PFS's site selection process does
not meet the demands of the President's Executive Order No. 12898
regarding environmental justice." The executive director of the
Utah Department of Environmental Quality, attending the public hearing
organized by the NRC on June 2, 1998, asserted that the Skull Valley
project is ethically unjust. The political use of environmental justice
language by state policy makers disregards Skull Valley Goshute tribal
sovereignty, striking at the most fundamental principle of tribal
justice. In addition, the State of Utah's opposition to the PFS facility
is clearly inconsistent with its previous policy on environmental
hazards in Tooele County. The debate over tribal sovereignty and its
implications for the land-use debate illustrates the state government's
hypocrisy and its veiled agenda to erode tribal sovereignty to get
tribal land under its control.
CONCLUSION: WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE?
The Skull Valley case study entails a far more intricate story that
that presented in the majority of existing literature dominated by
analytical frameworks of environmental racism and distributive environmental
justice. The historical colonialism grounded in the Skull Valley landscape
has structurally limited the capability of the tribe to achieve economic
and environmental self-determination. Conflict over the definition
and practice of tribal sovereignty at different geographic scales
reveal the social, historical, and political-economic complexity of
environmental justice, while implicating structural influences in
both the production and distribution of nuclear waste and the economic
survival strategies available to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute
Indians.
Within the contexts of colonialism and the politics of tribal sovereignty,
it is not
Possible to conclude that actually siting the PFS facility on the
Skull Valley reservation means that justice will have been achieved
for the tribe simply because the tribe made the decision in its sovereignty
capacity. Instead, the following question needs to be answered: In
what context has the tribe made the decision to accept high-level
radioactive waste?
The inevitable answer is that a prolonged process of historical colonialism
over people and land has produced a landscape of injustice in which
the tribe'' choices have been severely structurally limited. Even
if the tribe makes an informed decision to host the PFS facility,
working from consensus among tribal leaders reached through a democratic
process, they never participated in the decision-making process leading
to production of nuclear waste or leading to the absence of alternate
means of economic survival in the desert landscape. Lack of economic
autonomy due largely to the protracted environmental degradation of
Skull Valley has prevented the tribe from pursuing robust political-economic
sovereignty as an indigenous nation.
Whether the tribe ends up hosting high-level radioactive waste on
the reservation or not, therefore, this land-use conflict represents
procedural environmental injustice conditioned by Skull Valley's historical
geography.
The Skull Valley land-use debate reveals theoretical defects in the
predominant discourses of environmental racism and distributive environmental
justice, raising significant conceptual questions. As indicated in
this case, it is not necessarily useful to prove the racist intention
on the part of electric utilities and the federal government to site
nuclear waste on the tribal reservation. The disenfranchisement of
the tribe through institutional exclusion and isolation in the environmental
decision-making processes indicates the structural aspects of racism
embedded in hegemonic ideologies. Rather than seeking equity in the
distribution of hazards or eliminating intentional racist actions,
therefore, environmental justice requires the participation of communities
in various decision-makings, which are conditioned by and intertwined
with the political-economic processes and social relations at different
geographical scales. In the context of Indian Country, environmental
justice depends on the tribes' sovereign capacity to pursue politically,
economically, and ecologically sound options for sustainable development.
Accordingly, reinforcement of both political and economic sovereignty
of tribes will lead to the long-term accomplishment of environmental
justice.
There exists no easy answer to resolve the Skull Valley conflict concerning
the siting of high-level radioactive waste. Making a simple judgement
regarding environmental justice
Solely in the context of the present siting of the PFS facility leads
us nowhere. This paper does not provide specific suggestions to resolve
the immediate conflict, which is complicated by a variety of difficult
historical, social, and political-economic questions. Instead, environmental
justice scholars are encouraged to reframe their research questions
to articulate the truly complex practices of political economy and
historical colonialism over communities' struggles for self-determination.
The landscape and the peoples, who play active roles in the Skull
Valley conflict, would not then be subject to the influence of simplistic
analyses of environmental justice that have so far restricted the
terms of this debate.
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