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Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 21:37:35 GMT
Sender: Activists Mailing List <ACTIV-L@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
From: Alpha Institute <alpha@igc.apc.org>
Subject: NSP Blackmail of Prairie Island
NSP'S NUCLEAR BLACKMAIL OF PRAIRIE ISLAND
The Mdewakanton Band of Dakota must support NSP's exemption from
environmental regulations before they receive one dime in compensation...
St.Paul, Wisconsin (AP)
The Prairie Island Government said Jan. 24th they support ending a search for
another nuclear waste storage site away from their reservation in exchange for
land and cash from Northern States Power.
But to get the land or the cash they also have to support legislation that
would exempt NSP from environmental regulations and let them increase the
amount of nuclear waste stored at Prairie Island.
If the legislation passed, NSP would be able to store nuclear waste rods more
closely together without any environmental review by the state.
Members of the Prairie Island Coalition which opposed the nuclear waste
storage site said they support compensating the Dakota, but oppose efforts
to weaken environmental regulations.
NSP will not accept any amendments to the plan and the bill must be passed
his year or the deal with Prairie Island will not occur.
"It's take-it-or-leave-it situation," said Minnesota State Senator Steve
Novak (Dem.) who sponsored the 1994 law allowing NSP nuclear waste site.
As part of the compromise that allowed NSP to store spent nuclear fuel in
casks outside its Mississippi River power plant, the 1994 Legislature ordered
the company to search for alternative storage sites in Goodhue County.
Some say an agreement with the neighboring reservation government ends an
unnecessary search, while others worry it cements the plant site as a
permanent storage site for radioactive waste.
"This agreement does not mean we want nuclear waste stored on Prairie
Island," tribal council President Curtis Campbell Sr. said in a statement.
"We want it out of here and we will continue to push for a national
repository for the waste," he said, "But reality is that the casks are
here, the plant is still running, and the community is receiving nothing
in return."
One-third of Prairie Island's citizens wish to move, Campbell said. For
that third, NSP will buy 1,750 acres and give it to the tribe for members
who wish to relocate.
In addition, NSP will pay as much as $30 million during the next 18 years
in exchange for the Dakotas' support for state legislation that would drop
a state requirement for NSP to search for an alternative waste storage site
in nearby Goodhue County.
This agreement would end without any money or land being exchanged if the
legislation failed to pass.
Goodhue County had supported storing nuclear waste at Prairie Island, but
after their county was targeted by the state, leaders complained they were
being held hostage by efforts to relocate the nuclear waste to their
communities.
NSP needs to find a nuclear waste site because the U.S. Department of Energy
has backed away from its promise to find a place to bury the highly radioactive
spent fuel that continues to accumulate at the county's nuclear reactors.
About two dozen states, including Minnesota, are suing the government in an
attempt to force it to claim the waste.
Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St.Paul, a leading opponent of the 1994 law, said
she supports Prairie Island's negotiations to move away from the nuclear
plant and is prepared to repeal the search for an alternative nuclear waste
site in Goodhue County.
But she said the proposal goes too far when it exempts NSP from environmental
review and allows it to increase storage by "reracking spent fuel rods more
closely together."
George Crocker, a member of the Prairie Island Coalition which opposed the
law allowing the storage of nuclear waste call the deal nuclear racism at
its worst.
If NSP wants additional storage for radioactive waste in its pool within the
plant, "the only honorable way to proceed is to apply for permission from the
state and argue the case on its merits."
To link the Dakota's relocation money with an exemption from environmental
laws, "amounts to one of the ugliest manifestations of nuclear racism that
we can conceive of, and we will call it as such and oppose it,"
Crocker said.
'The St.Paul Pioneer & Minneapolis Star and Tribune contributed to this story'