Nuclear Free Zones

HOW TO HELP


**Get Nuclear Free Zone Passed by tribal governments

**Prevent the acceptance of high-level radioactive waste on Indian Lands

**Work with local activists and Indian groups to inform tribal membership about radioactive hazards

**Make presentations at appropriate conferences

**Support efforts in Congress and U.S. federal agencies to do away with the public or private program of seeking MRS sites on Indian lands.

Prairie Island

Prairie Island's main claim to fame is one no one would really like to have. Northern States Power, main electrical supplier for Minnesota and much of Wisconsin, in the early 1970's built a nuclear electrical generating plant just a few hundred yards from the small reservation separated by impoundment waters of the Mississippi Lock and Dam Number 2 nearby which are used for cooling the nuke. This photo shows the two large cylindrical containment domes. The Prairie Island plant contains two nukes (reactors).

The spent (very radioactive) fuel rods of this nuke were stored for a while in a kind of big swimming pool inside the domes. By the early 1980's, this storage was no longer adequate. Northern States Power trucked away -- in secret trucks during the night -- some of the spent fuel rods. And they made plans to build a "temporary" storage facility, just 500 yeards from the reservation's Day Care Center. Using revenues from their successful casino, Prairie Island retained experts to study the situation, and eventually sued to halt this operation. They won, but the court simply said the state legislature must decide, not the Public Utilities Commission (which, like most, is in NSP's pocket). A local alliance grew from the issue: the American Indian Movement (AIM), environmental groups, concerned Minnesotans, and other environmentalists began to support the small tribe. There were demonstrations and lobbying -- the amateurs vs NSP, which spent more money lobbying this issue in a year than has ever been spent before at the rather sleepy Minnesota state legislature.

Skull Valley

The United States brief experience with commercial nuclear power has left the country with a long-term problem- disposing of the highly radioactive reactoe fuel that nuclear utilities produce. It is estimated that the hundred plus commercial nuclear reactors will, within the next 40 years, generate approximately 85,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. Because the spent nuclear fuel will remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years, the most effective means of safe disposal is to bury the fuel permanetly in an underground repository. Due to the lobg-term planning required for disposal and the political sensitivity that revolves around radio active waste, the development of a permanent repository has been slow.

several nuclear facilities have joined together to develop a temporary centralized storage facility in which to place spent fuel until a permanent repository is available. Hoping to derive various economic benefits from the development, the Skull VAlley Band of Goshutes, an American Indian tribe native to Utah, has agreed to lease a portion of their reservation to host the facility.
In exchange for these benefits, the Goshutes will be helping nuclear utilities adress the variou problems created by the accumulation of spent fuel at the utilities' reactor sites. The Goshutes efforts at leasing the land for the facility has attracted opposition from environmental groups, the State if Utah, and members of their own tribr, all of whom are concerned by the dangers posed by radiation.