Description

The general area that was under consideration by this study is located in western Utah and eastern Nevada. The electronic combat test capability (ECTC) proposal potentially affected areas extending from the Great Salt Lake in the north to Milford, Utah in the south and from Eureka, Utah in the east to Ely, Nevada in the west. For most of this area potential impacts derived from the effects of air traffic. Construction and operation impacts would have occurred at various locations from throughout the study area. The largest concentration of both air flight and ground disturbance impacts would have occurred in one of three long valleys located south of the Dugway Proving Ground: Whirwind Valley, Tule Valley, and Snake Valley. These valleys are approximately 60 miles long and have a north to south orientation. The valleys are defined by mountain ranges with peaks from 7,000 to 12,000 feet elevation. Valley floors vary between 4,000 to 5,000 feet in elevation. So each valley involves different ecological zones that span as much as 8,000 vertical feet. This physically and ecologically diverse topography has been utilized by American Indian people for tens of thousands of years. For at least the past few hundred years it has been used by American Indian people belonging to the Goshute, Southern Paiute, and Ute ethnic groups. This report describes and summarizes the concerns of Goshute, Southern Paiute, and Ute Indian people for cultural resources that might have been potentially affected by proposed U.S. Air Force ECTC actions and alternatives in one of three candidate valleys in west - central Utah. Between March 6, 1989 and March 23, 1989, ethnographers from the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, along with representatives of Science Applications International Corporation, Las Vegas, Nevada, and the United States Air Force, established a consultation relationship with four tribal governments who represent three American Indian ethnic groups involved in the cultural resources assessment study. During this time period, tribal representatives visited each of the three candidate valleys and the specific locations of proposed sites slated for potential ground disturbing activities and development within each candidate valley to comment on cultural resources that exist there.