Brigham City » Fresh from breaking ground on a geothermal plant near Honeyville, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation is proposing a second "green" plant, one that would turn municipal garbage into electricity on Promontory Point in the Great Salt Lake.

The tribe's business arm, the Northwestern Shoshone Economic Development Corp., is acquiring a 2,000-acre landfill site, and plans a gasification plant that would produce electricity for sale to California cities, said Mike Devine, the company's chief operating officer.

"Bringing in waste by rail in tandem with a biomass plant that is green is certainly superior to creating an eternal landfill," said Devine.

But whether the Shoshones will have any more luck than their predecessors in enticing the Northern Utah Regional Landfill Authority (NURLA) to haul garbage to the peninsula remains unclear.

The site was assembled and permitted through the state in 2004 with the hope that NURLA, which controls garbage from five northern counties, would choose to take their garbage there.

Devine and Bruce Parry, chief executive officer, made a pitch last week to NURLA's staff, those who operate landfills and transfer stations from Davis to Cache County.

The time seemed ripe, since NURLA's first choice for a long-term landfill strategy -- buying and enlarging Box Elder County's Little Mountain Landfill -- was knocked down by voters in a referendum earlier this month.

But the regional alliance still has reservations about a project on Promontory Point, which ranked fifth out of six potential landfill sites in a Zions Bank analysis.

"I don't think we should move them to No. 2 and enter into confidentiality agreements with them just because they're knocking on our door," Box Elder County Commissioner Clark Davis told his colleagues on the NURLA board last week.

Issa Hamud, Logan's environmental director, and Nathan Rich, executive director of Wasatch Integrated Waste Management System, said the Shoshones' idea is worth taking seriously, but so far they've heard only generalities.

"I want to believe it. But I want to see a delineated plan," said Hamud.

The 2,000-acre Promontory site, assembled over a number of years by Pacific West LLC, was given a state permit for a Class I municipal landfill in 2004, but it didn't persuade cities and counties to send their waste.

Jay Harwood, managing member of Pacific West LLC, said the sale of the site should close next month and the Shoshones will pay for it over five years.

A key problem with the site has always been access. Other than a narrow and long county road from west of Corinne, the point is accessible only by the Union Pacific causeway and perhaps, by Great Salt Lake Minerals' dike.

While some at Union Pacific were open to the idea of using the causeway, it was nixed by the transportation decision-makers, said Harwood.

Devine said he thinks the Shoshones can sweeten the deal for Union Pacific.

Even if they never build a landfill or bio-mass plant, the tribe wants to mine the sand, gravel, aggregate and ballast on the property, he said. The railroad is a big user of ballast, the rock that goes under rails.

"The railroad has a lot of reasons to grant us access," Devine said.

A Union Pacific spokewoman acknowledged that discussions are under way.

Devine said the Promontory project's success does not depend on NURLA; the tribe is also negotiating with other communities to send their garbage.

But an ownership stake in the project, he said, could be a good thing for the northern counties, he said.

"If they don't have an alternative, where are they going to go?"

Devine said the project would be "green, green, green," producing low emissions and little waste for the landfill. Hydrogen fuel cells would be a byproduct, he said.

But it still would likely encounter opposition from environmentalists.

Friends of Great Salt Lake objected to the landfill when it was permitted, in part because of the prospect of trash blowing through the ecosystem. Sending gravel off the peninsula would make the impacts even worse, said Lynn de Freitas, executive director of Friends.

"It's on the flanks of Great Salt Lake," she said. "There's a lot more there that is of value than the land use potential of a landfill and a gravel pit."