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. But people who don't want to live with nuclear waste shouldn't have to.
Prairie Island is our history, but it is also our future.
We should not be expected to settle for less. 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. 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.