** Posted with Permission **
Minnesota Legislature approves nuclear waste storage at Prairie Island
by Mordecai Specktor
Copyright 1994 Mordecai Specktor
St. Paul, Minnesota -
The Minnesota Legislature agreed to let Northern States Power Company
(NSP) store spent nuclear fuel outdoors next to its Prairie Island nuclear
power plant in Red Wing. Nuclear waste will be put in above-ground "dry
casks" - 17 massive steel canisters - under a bill signed into law May 10
by Gov. Arne Carlson.
However, the law requires NSP to search for an alternative storage site
elsewhere in the county where the nuclear power plant is located, and
eventually move the casks away from Prairie Island on the Mississippi
River, which is home to the Mdewakanton Dakota (Sioux) community.
NSP will get five storage casks immediately, then four more when it begins
searching for an alternative storage site, and contracts for 100 megawatts
of electricity generated by wind power. The final eight casks at Prairie
Island will be allowed after NSP has begun construction of its alternative
nuclear waste storage site, and has contracted for a total of 225
megawatts of wind power and 50 megawatts of power from farm crops (alfalfa
and trees for burning).
NSP officials exulted in their victory at the Legislature. "I feel like a
little kid with a new toy," Merle Anderson, NSP's head lobbyist, told the
Red Wing Republican Eagle. "We win."
The alternative storage site required in the law might never go into
operation, according to press reports quoting Anderson.
Prairie Island tribal council officials were deeply disappointed with the
decision to put a nuclear waste dump within several blocks of their homes.
There has been no specific response regarding what tribal officials will
do next. Litigation in federal court is one possibility, or a return to
the Legislature next year to modify provisions in the law, according to an
attorney representing the tribal council.
The Legislature "chose a racist accomodation of nuclear power over a
sustainable energy future," charged Mel Duncan, spokesperson for
Minnesotans for Nuclear Responsibility (MNR), a coalition of environmental
and religious groups, which allied itself with the tribe's position.
Duncan blamed Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) legislative leadership for
pushing through a dry cask storage plan favorable to NSP.
Tribal officials testified at numerous House and Senate committee hearings
since the Legislature convened in late February, and actively lobbied
against NSP's dry cask storage plan throughout the legislative session
that ended May 7.
Opposition from Prairie Island tribal council members led to the removal
of a provision in one version of the nuclear waste bill - passed by the
Senate March 30 - that would have allowed the state to buy 1200 acres of
land in Goodhue County and relocate the entire Prairie Island Dakota
community. The land supposedly would have been transferred to the U.S.
government and put in trust for the tribe. "Relocation assistance" would
have been provided to tribal members.
An earlier Senate version of the legislation would have paid the Prairie
Island tribe $2.2 million - observers referred to this as the "bribe the
tribe" section of the bill.
NSP officials stated that without dry cask storage they would be forced to
shut down one Prairie Island reactor next year and the second reactor in
1996, because there is no room left for more spent nuclear fuel rods in
the indoor storage pool at the plant.
The U.S. government had planned to have a permanent depository for
high-level radioactive waste up and operating by 1988, but the program has
fallen far behind schedule. Construction of a nuclear waste burial ground
is proceeding at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but many years and $2 billion
later, that facility is not expected to receive nuclear waste shipments
before the year 2010. Also, the project is vociferously opposed by both
the Western Shoshone Indian nation and Nevada political leaders. Likewise,
little progress has been made in establishing a federal monitored
retrievable storage program (MRS), an intermediate facility for storing
nuclear waste.
Just prior to the beginning of the 1994 legislative session, NSP announced
that the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico was interested in taking the
utility's spent nuclear fuel. NSP is now leading a group of 30 electric
utilities that would like to contract with the Mescaleros for what has
been called a "rental locker" operation for high-level radioactive waste.
Some members of the Mescalero tribe - along with the governor of New
Mexico and the state's congressional delegation - have spoken out against
the plan.
City officials and business owners in Red Wing, located 35 miles southeast
of the Twin Cities, told legislators that they depend on the $22 million
in annual city, county and school district taxes from NSP. They said the
loss of the Prairie Island plant's $28 million annual payroll would
devastate the local economy. NSP and Red Wing residents were joined in
their legislative lobbying effort by AFL-CIO representatives, who argued
that some 250 union jobs would be lost in any scheme that interrupted
plant operations.
The fight over NSP's dry cask storage bill was the most contentious issue
this year at the Minnesota Legislature. NSP pulled out all the stops,
filling TV air with pro-nuclear commercials and running large newspaper
ads daily. The Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota community and MNR
responded in kind, but on a vastly reduced scale.
The Dakota at Prairie Island categorically opposed dry cask storage near
their land, for fear of possible health risks to themselves and future
generations, and for the effect that it could have on the tribe's
lucrative Treasure Island casino.
At a May 4 press conference, Darelyn Lehto, vice president of the Prairie
Island tribal council, said: "If there are people in Minnesota who feel
'perfectly comfortable' living next to a radioactive dump, let them do so.
But people who don't want to live with nuclear waste shouldn't have to.
Long before there was an NSP - long before there were nuclear reactors on
the island - our people made their home on those 640 acres. Prairie Island
is our history, but it is also our future. We should not be expected to
settle for less."
Lehto's comments were in response to a news story that day, in which
Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary - formerly executive vice president for
corporate affairs at NSP - cautioned against shutting down a "safe,
reliable, economic and environmentally correct power plant that's up and
running" due to fears about dry cask nuclear waste storage.
Tribal members watched the legislative process wind through hearing after
hearing; the dry cask storage bill was defeated at different times in
both the House and Senate environment committees, but the bill had many
lives.
The House and Senate each passed bills proposing a solution to the nuclear
waste storage problem, but they were quite different: The Senate would
give NSP 17 dry casks; the House, zero. A House-Senate conference
committee wrangled for a week before finally agreeing on a "compromise"
measure that could result in 17 dry casks sitting at Prairie Island for an
indeterminate period of time. The bill reported out of the conference
easily passed both houses of the Legislature on May 6.
Although other electric utilities have opted for dry cask storage
facilities, NSP's critics charge that Minnesota now has the nation's first
high-level nuclear waste dump established by a state legislature.
Throughout the debate on NSP's nuclear waste plan, charges of
"environmental racism" were raised. NSP's opponents declared that, once
again, land belonging to people of color, American Indians, was a suitable
dumping ground.
The Minnesota Legislature agreed that the practice of siting hazardous
waste dumps near minority communities and the poor should be looked into,
and approved the establishment of a study group coordinated by the
Minnesota Environmental Quality Board.
The governor decided, however, to pour some salt in the fresh wounds of
the Prairie Island Dakota community and their supporters. Following
adjournment of the Legislature, Carlson vetoed the $10,000 appropriation
that would have funded the environmental justice study. - 30 -
Copyright 1994 Mordecai Specktor
Mordecai Specktor
3544 16th Ave. So.
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Tel.: (612) 729-7050
mordecaisp@aol.com