Prairie Island

Just upriver from Red Wing, Minnesota is the Prairie Island Indian Community, a Mdewakanton Dakota tribe. In the early 1970’s, Northern States Power, now known as XCel Energy after a 2000 merger with New Century Energies, built a nuclear electrical generating plant just a few hundred yards from the reservation. The Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota community never had a voice in the decision to have a nuclear neighbor, let alone one within a 5-minute walk of their day care center. They were only told it was to be a “steam” generator. It turned out to be a Westinghouse nuclear reactor, a triple loop system prone to heat exchanger failures. The Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota Community has the dubious destination of being the closest community to a nuke plant in the United States. (Confronting Nuclear Racism 1996)

You may be asking, “So, what problems exist at Prairie Island’s nuclear reactor plant? According to a report published by Public Citizen in 2001,

“An investigation by the Minnesota Department of Public Service revealed that Northern States Power (a subsidiary of XCel) hid problems with the Prairie Island nuclear plant from investigators in 1992. In testimony before a state hearing examiner, XCel portrayed Prairie Island as a model facility whose reliability would remain stable or increase in the future. However, XCel lawyers were at the same time preparing a suit against Westinghouse that alleged “serious defects” in the plant’s steam generators.”

Furthermore, XCel has denied for years that increasing pollution levels in the Mississippi were a result of the plant. However, XCel eventually admitted that a known carcinogen called tritium had been released into the water near its plant. In a Simpsons-like display of technology gone berserk in nearby waterways, fish were found near the discharge area with three fins on them. (Public Citizen 2001) It should be added that the Prairie Island Community was not compensated for this contamination. (The Circle 1999)

Another dangerous condition that exists on Prairie Island relates to the storage of nuclear waste. After a 1994 coalition-led campaign, XCel was forced to limit the amount of nuclear waste that could be stored next to the reservation. A law was passed that allowed XCel to store 17 dry casks of waste on-site. (PIC website) The Prairie Island Indian Community was given the ability to enforce the law. However, XCel began pressuring the Minnesota state government in 2001 to break this promise by passing a bill to expand nuclear waste storage on Prairie Island.

What does all of this prove? The nuclear industry, of which the XCel Prairie Island plant is a part, practices racism. Communities of color and the poor bear a disproportionate share of the risk associated with inadequate technology, exposure to radioactive waste, and storage of radioactive waste. In fact, 17 of 20 potential sites for federal interim storage of high-level waste were on Native American tribal lands. (www.no-nukes.org)

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