Planning and Policy
Prior to the construction of the Prairie Island nuclear plant, there was much discourse among key organizations about the design and safety of the plant. Before this discourse is explained, we will briefly establish the key players in this discussion.
Something to note here is that this is not all the voices who are relevant in considerations of the nuclear plant; it is only the ones whose voices were recorded and who had sufficient recognition to have an impact on the design of the plant. As a result, the Prairie Island Indian Community is not on this list, as they did not have much influence on the decision-making process of the Prairie Island nuclear plant, despite being those impacted most closely by the plant.
NSP – Northern States Power
Discussed in the history section, NSP is the predecessor of Xcel Energy and constructed all of Minnesota’s nuclear plants, as well as many power plants of other kinds.
MECCA – Minnesota Environmental Control Citizens Association
The primary advocate against the construction of the Prairie Island nuclear plant other than the Prairie Island Indian Community themselves.
MPCA – Minnesota Pollution Control Authority
One of the agencies who surveyed the ecological effects of the plant and oversaw its design.
Atomic Energy Commission
Another one of the agencies meant to oversee the plant, blamed in multiple documents for prioritizing the advertisement and advancement of nuclear energy over its regulation and safety.
Brainerd Daily Dispatch
A newspaper addressed by MECCA for criticizing MECCA and other figures for their activism against nuclear power.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Responsible for managing permits to do work on land, it is unclear to what extent. Documents regarding NSP permits come from the Department of Defense.
Next, we will discuss the key points of discourse. This will be done in three sections: the siting of nuclear plants, ecological impacts, and information sharing. Sources for this section are listed at the bottom, and referenced by number (e.g, Source 3) in the text.
Siting
Referenced across a few sources is a cost-benefit analysis by which the site for the Prairie Island nuclear plant was chosen.
“Yet we are continuing to plunge ahead with the application of this relatively new technology, with ‘economics’ being cited time and again as the justification for avoiding a more cautious approach of more judicious site selection”
Source 4, p. 1
Furthermore, MECCA complains that ecological costs are taken out of consideration in order to allow for the most profit, and recommends that environmental experts (and experts on natural beauty) be consulted in the allowance of thermal pollution from the Prairie Island nuclear plant.
Presumably, this land was owned by the U.S. at the time that it was sold to NSP, but the fact that it seems to have been bought for much cheaper than other land stands in line with historical instances of native land changing hands for much less money than other land, undermining the worth of a group’s historical home, now stolen.
Ecological Impacts
Across many sources by MECCA, MPCA, and the Atomic Energy Commission, the most concern at the time seemed to be in relation to thermal pollution, and remarkably little around waste storage.
Sources 2 and 3 discuss how most of the water was cooled to a temperature of 89º Fahrenheit, but some was left at 107º, and all the water mixed in was dumped into the Mississippi River.
These sources emphasize the importance of recreational water use, such as how Prairie Island nuclear plant’s thermal pollution sent heated water to parks downstream such as Lake Pepin. However, the impact of thermal pollution on the Prairie Island population is not addressed once, despite their waters being the most directly affected and thus likely having the highest increase in temperatures as waters cooled off downstream.
Another type of pollution from the Prairie Island Nuclear Plant is radioactive waste. Storage will be discussed in depth on the next page, but it is clear that MECCA was concerned about the impacts of radioactive waste.
“Minnesota has the highest death rate from leukemia in the nation.”
Source 6
MECCA attempted to combat these issues by lobbying for NSP to file a single permit for all pollution emitted by the Prairie Island nuclear plant, rather than separate permits for thermal pollution and radioactive waste (Source 5). This was unsuccessful, but helped to raise awareness of NSP’s nonchalant admission of plans to “dump” waste into the Mississippi River–a term that they themselves found fault with.
Information Sharing
These sources all illustrate how much knowledge of the environmental risks of the plant were acknowledged across local populations during the time of the plant’s construction.
MECCA is by definition a civilian advocacy group, and they were well aware–and indignant– of the plant’s potential impacts. However, over the years, much of this knowledge has ebbed and flowed in and out of public view, as new information about waste storage or thermal pollution is released but the knowledge of the past is lost.
However, it is clear from Source 2 that MECCA had to fight for what information they got, and were dissatisfied with the level of responsiveness from government agencies such as MPCA and the Atomic Energy Commission.
MECCA aimed to improve the environmental conditions for the citizens it represented, and these avenues moved beyond legal venues–this will be discussed in the page on resistance.
Sources
- Source 1: Department of the Army, St. Paul District. Corps of Engineers, “Notice of Application for Permit,” April 15, 1969
- Source 2: Hearing by United States Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, “Intergovernmental Coordination of Power Development and Environmental Protection Act,” September 16, 1970, Statement by Rev. Paul H. Engstrom, President, Minnesota Environmental Control Citizens Association (MECCA).
- Source 3: MECCA, “Statement for the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy Hearing on Effects of Electric Power Production on the Environment, January 27, 1970
- Source 4: U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Letter to Dr. Lee DuBridge, July 7, 1969
- Source 5: MECCA, “‘One Plant– One Permit,’ Urges MECCA, For NSP’s Prairie Island Plant,” undated
- Source 6: Robert F Nelson, Letter to Floyd Emerson, editor of Brainerd Daily Dispatch, December 4, 1972
- Source 7: NSP Drawings of Prairie Island Nuclear Plant, 1969