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.