From: adams@mari.acc-admin.stolaf.edu (Brynach ap Adda)
Newsgroups: alt.native,alt.pagan,alt.activism
Subject: Nukes Vs. Natives in Minnesota
Date: 11 Dec 92 20:35:57 GMT
Organization: St. Olaf College; Northfield, MN

"Prairie Island Sues State Over Nuclear Waste Storage Plan"

by Jeff Armstrong

   The small Dakota band of Prairie Island Mdewakanton continued
its battle against utility giant Northern States Power in federal
court last month, and also filed suit against the Minnesota Public
Utilities Commission in the state Court of Appeals in an effort to
force the issue of nuclear storage upon a reluctant state legislature.

   "The issue of whether NSP and the PUC can subvert the democratic
process must be decided by the courts," said Prairie Island attorney
Willie Hardacker in a statement to the press. "The nuclear waste 
storage issue must be presented to the general public through its
elected officials for meaningful consideration."

   The state Public Utilities Commission defied the recommendations
of its own administrative law judge and the House environmental 
committee in June, when the PUC issued a permit for NSP to store
radioactive waste alongside the Prairie Island community without the
tribe's consent. Similarly, the late federal judge Edward Devitt
overruled BIA and Interior Department rulings in a December 1991
injunction against a tribal law aimed at regulating the shipment of
radioactive waste on a road running through the reservation. Although
the latter case remains an important sovereignty issue, as well as a
symbolic reclamation of the rights NSP "purchased" for less than $200,
its strategic value became moot when the corporation began construction
on a road circumventing Prairie Island's borders.

   In the state lawsuit filed November 23, the courts are likely to
determine the fate of Prairie Island for the foreseeable future as
they weigh the legality of the decision which threatens to expose the
community to waste remaining dangerously radioactive for thousands of
years. At issue is whether the 1977 Radioactive Waste Management Act
applies to NSP's storage plan. The wording of the law appears
straightforward enough, stating "[N]o person shall construct or operate
a nuclear waste management facility within Minnesota unless expressly
authorized by the Minnesota legislature."

   But ambiguities in the act gave NSP the legal arguments to
supplement the vast lobbying power it harnessed to keep the issue out
of public debate. NSP argued that its proposed nuclear repository would
not be a "radioactive waste management facility" because of specifications
in the law that refer to burial in soil or permanent storage. It further
argued that the law's exemption for storage at the point of generation
applied not just to spent fuel rods held within the plant, but to waste
stored anywhere on plant grounds.

   "The feeling among some is they (NSP) have been very clever in framing
the issue," said Rep. Alice Hausman, a leading legislative opponent of
nuclear storage. "That [act] was [passed] in the '70's when they couldn't
even conceive of storing nuclear waste in dry casks. You have to look 
at the spirit of the law, the intent of the law," said Hausman. Her 
opinion is shared by the bill's original author, Sen. Gene Merriam, and
the House Committee on the Environment and Natural Resources.

   NSP faces the exceedingly problemmatic task of proving that the federal
government will eventually live up to its stated obligation to take over
management of all of the nation's radioactive waste. The Department of
Energy was originally scheduled to assume responsibility for the waste
in 1998, but later set the date back to 2010. In legislative testimony
NSP admitted that only in a best case scenario would the DOE take the
waste out of Minnesota by the year 2020. Its long-planned Yucca
Mountain site was, for all practical purposes, eliminated from 
consideration in June when an earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter
scale ripped through the DOE installation there.

   The government is now reduced to luring Native nations with
substantial cash grants to consider accepting U.S. radiation in
Monitored Retrievable Storage facilities. While 14 tribes have taken
the bait, many, including Prairie Island, are believed to be doing so
for tactical reasons, and environmentalists in Minnesota are confident
that no national site will be found in time to save the "Prairie Island"
nuclear reactors if the tribe succeeds in court.

   NSP was embarrassed recently when its reactors, once held up as
industry models, lost their top ranking from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission after an accidental release of Tritium into drinking wells
and a nearly disastrous incident in which the reactor rods overheated
due to low water levels.

   According to the Prairie Island Tribal Council, "Northern States
Power has and is conspiring to force the Mdewakanton Dakota people
and every citizen of the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin to live next
to a high level nuclear waste site with no date certain as to when this
nuclear waste will be removed from our home lands."

   Legislative efforts on the nuclear issue are likely to remain indirect.
Supporters of the tribe's legal position are circulating amicus curiae
(friend of the court) briefs for sympathetic legislators to sign on to.
House environmental committee chair Willard Munger is also planning to
bring a delegation of his associates on a Dec. 9 tour of the plant and 
meeting with tribal officials.

   The substantive lobbying will be focused on broad themes such as
developing energy alternatives and implementing conservation and
efficiency measures, which numerous studies have shown could reduce         
energy consumption by at least half. "We're going to be proactive
rather than reactive," Hausman said. "Two studies will be coming out in
the next couple of months which will demonstrate that renewable energy
is a viable strategy for economic development" in addition to its
obvious environmental benefits, said Hausman. One study, by the Union
of Concerned Scientists, is a county-by-county analysis of Minnesota's
potential for wind power. Hausman said the state was selected because
of the promise Minnesota shows for that form of power.

   Governor Arne Carlson, however, appears poised to stand in the way
of any sweeping action on alternative energy technologies. His Department
of Public Services commissioner recently laid off two nationally
respected experts on solar, wind and hydroelectric power. The same
commissioner recently came under fire from environmentalists for
establishing modest goals for renewable energy development in the state.

[Source: "The Circle" (Mpls. MN) Vol. 13 - No. 12, December 1992]
Brynach Brawdfran ap Adda       (Sam Adams)   adams@mari.acc-admin.stolaf.edu

"I am the Wheel, I am the Turning..."    - Brian Eno and John Cale
Newsgroups: alt.native