The Skull Valley Indian Reservation (Gosiute dialect: Wepayuttax)[3] is located in Tooele County, Utah, United States, approximately 45 miles (72 km) southwest of Salt Lake City.

[1] The reservation comprises 28.187 square miles (73.00 km2) of land in east central Tooele County, adjacent to the southwest side of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in the Stansbury Mountains.

In Fall 2013, a few weeks after the Patch Springs Fire, an intense rainstorm hit the area, causing flooding and mudflows estimated at 3,000 cubic feet (85 m3).

Mark Twain remembered them as "the wretchedest type of mankind ... a people whose only shelter is a rag cast on a bush to keep off a portion of the snow, and yet who inhabit one of the most rocky, wintry, repulsive wastes that our country or any other can exhibit."

Brigham Young requested that the US government relocate all Native Americans in the Utah Territory to a reservation "where white men do not dwell."

Leon Bear pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was required to pay $31,000 to the tribe account and $13,000 in federal taxes, and was given three years probation.

[15][16] Sammy Blackbear, an attorney, and two other tribe members were charged with similar counts of theft after a soft coup in 2001 where they withdrew over $45,000 in tribal funds and transferred over $400,000 in funds to the falsified new tribal organization (with authorization from the Henry Clayton, the non-recognized Nato Indian nation's self-described "residing judge of the First Federal District Court"), attempted to get $250,000 at a second branch, and attempted to withdraw $385,000 from another bank.

[28] Hanson connects the industrial uses in the region to a broader history of environmental justice issues have plagued the Goshute Band dating back to at least the 1840s when Mormon settlers would expel lepers to the area in which they lived.

[10] The United States Army tests the extremely toxic VX nerve agent at their Dugway Proving Ground facility located in the area immediately surrounding the Skull Valley Indian Reservation.

It is possible that this has contributed to the tribe's tendency to turn to waste disposal, nuclear storage and other potentially toxic activities as a means for economic development.

[34] However, the Yucca Mountain project was killed due to political opposition, heightening the need for a high-level nuclear waste repository.

[38] The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) approved the lease in March 1997, but the agreement was not in effect as of 2006 "amid a mountain of lawsuits, regulatory hurdles and bitter opposition.

"[31] In 2006, legislation sponsored by Utah congressman Rob Bishop was signed into law by President George W. Bush, declaring 100,000 acres in the region as wilderness area, thereby cutting off "the only practical route for a rail spur delivering heavy steel casks of spent fuel rods to the Goshute reservation.

[27] In 2006, following ten years of review,[34] the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a license for the Private Fuel Storage (PFS) project, which the State of Utah challenged in federal court.

[36] Subsequently, further development was administratively blocked, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit overturned these obstacles,[34] giving the project a chance at viability.

[32] However, the BIA refused to approve lease agreement between the PFS and the Goshute tribune, and U.S. Bureau of Land Management denied an application of a right-of-way that would have been necessary "for offloading the waste and hauling it to the reservation.

"[32] In December 2012, however, following these renewed obstacles, the project was finally killed as Private Fuel Storage requested the termination of its NRC license.