A Goshute grass-roots organization, Ohngo Guadadeh Devia Awareness, is sponsoring weekend activities for the public to protest proposed storage of high-level nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Indian Reservation in Tooele County. Events today and Sunday begin around 7 a.m. with sunrise prayer ceremonies, and will include talks by tribal elders and activists and a Goshute-led "spirit run" to the proposed Private Fuel Storage waste site. A news conference is planned for 12:30 p.m. today. Other event sponsors include the Shundahai Network, a regional organization working to support campaigns to keep nuclear waste out of the Great Basin, and the environmentalist group HEAL Utah. The protest will be held on the reservation, about 45 miles west of Salt Lake City and approximately 26 miles south from I-80 off Exit 27 to Rowley/Dugway. Signs will direct participants to the protest site. Those attending are asked to register at the time of the event. Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of seven electrical utilities whose nuclear power plants are running out of on-site storage for spent fuel rods, in 1997 signed a lease with members of the Goshute tribe to store up to 44,000 tons of the spent fuel. The proposal has been opposed by the state and must be approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has been holding closed-door meetings on the proposal. Goshute tribal member Margene Bullcreek, chairwoman of Ohngo Guadadeh Devia, is one of the leaders of the anti-PFS movement. The group last month, along with the state, asked to intervene in the NRC's review of the proposal. Proponents say the facility would provide temporary storage for some of the nation's deadliest nuclear waste that later would be transported to the permanent facility planned for Yucca Mountain, Nev. But Congress has reached a stalemate in the fight over funding the Yucca Mountain project, and no action is expected until after the Nov. 2 election. In July, an appeals court found the federal government wasn't following its own rules on Yucca Mountain, further threatening its viability. It is unknown what would become of the PFS proposal if the Yucca Mountain project is scuttled. - Patty Henetz