ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND THE SKULL VALLEY GOSHUTE INDIANS' PROPOSAL TO STORE NUCLEAR WASTE

摘要

This Note considers the application of various understandings of environmental justice to the recent defeat of the Skull Valley Goshutes' proposal to store high level nuclear waste on their reservation, Although opponents of the proposal framed the issue as a case of environmental racism inflicted on a poor tribe, first by the federal government and later by a nuclear power consortium, it is arguable that environmental justice has not been achieved by the defeat of this proposal. The tribe is still disadvantaged by surrounding toxic and hazardous land uses and is now unable to make similar use of its land. This Note argues that opposition to this proposal, despite being couched as environmental justice, was actually driven by concern for the nearby population of Utahns living along the Wasatch front. Such opposition, based on concerns for the nearby population, rather than the impoverished tribe, does not fit the traditional objective of the environmental justice movement to protect disadvantaged groups Expansions in definition and objectives of environmental justice may allow the plight of the Goshutes' to be included in environmental justice as a case of a minority population that is prevented from benefiting from natural resource and development policies This expansion shows that environmental justice is a new and still developing area Originally applied in urban, industrial situations, it has evolved to deal with rural and natural resource use disputes.