March 1993
the monthly newsletter for people who live, work or play on the Upper Mississippi River
Vol. 1, No. 3
Nuclear Fuel Storage at Prairie Island: How Safe? How Temporary? By Marc Hequet
A nightmare vision grips the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Sioux Community: looming rows of sullen, steel cylinder megaliths spitting dangerous, invisible gamma rays and neutrons into the dull fog of the Mississippi River bottoms for centuries. Nightmare? No, not at all, insists Northern States Power Company, the Minneapolis-based electric and gas utility. The proposed storage of spent nuclear fuel at its Prairie Island reactor facility, upriver from Red Wing, would be entirely safe. Prairie Island community homes, some within a mile of the proposed outdoor storage site, would be sufficiently shielded from radiation by the thick steel of the storage casks and by a 16-foot-high earth berm. And the casks would be at the plant for only a few years, until the federal government provides a permanent storage site elsewhere. "We have a legally binding contract with the federal government," explained Jon Kapitz, NSP's spent fuel storage project manager. "It is federal law. They have to take the fuel out of here. Congress fully intends that the federal government will meet that requirement."
The Neighborhood Ironic, isn't it, that the storage site is adjacent to the Prairie Island Community of Mdewakanton Sioux. Who can blame the Sioux for doubting? The United States hasn't exactly been a good neighbor. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. has broken nearly all the 650 treaties it signed with Indian tribes. In January, Joseph Campbell, a member of the Prairie Island community's Environmental Protection Committee, protested by setting up a tipi on the Minnesota state Capitol grounds. "Maybe they'll think this is an Indian reservation and store it here," he said with bitter humor. "Right in front of the
State Capitol there, that's enough room to build the same thing." While expanded nuclear storage on Prairie Island isn't a treaty matter, the Mdewakanton and their antinuclear allies fear that permanent safe storage is a dream and that the spent fuel, once placed in the flood plain, is likely to stay there perhaps for the entire 10,000 years the Department of Energy estimates it will take for it to decline to the level of radioactivity of unmined uranium.
The Mdewakanton and their antinuclear allies fear that permanent safe storage is a dream, and the Prairie Island spent fuel once placed in the flood plain is likely to stay there. Prairie Island's two reactor units, which came on-line in 1973 and 1974, represent 12 percent of NSP's generating capacity and provide about 20 percent of NSP's electricity. The pressurized water reactors, fueled by rods of enriched uranium, are highly rated by the nuclear industry for efficient production of low-cost electricity. NSPhas been storing its spent fuel What's inside... rods in an indoor pool at the Prairie Island Current Events 2 plant. But the plant will River Calendar 3 run out of storage space Musseling In 6 by 1995, a deadline that threatens operation of Coming in April
Prairie Island, continued on page 4
• Changing a Big River into Big Lakes
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Current Events By Reggie McLeod
The Year of the Zebra Mussel The first zebra mussel was spotted in the Mississippi River in the late summer of 1991. Last summer they spread from Pool 8 at least as far upstream as the Lower St. Anthony Falls pool (see map on page 6) and may have traveled all the way down the river. An adult female produces about 30,000 eggs. These hatch into juveniles too tiny to see that are quite willing to accept rides in bait buckets and live wells or any other object that can hold water. Expect to hear a lot more about them next summer, as the small prolific bivalves attach themselves by the thousands to locks, barge hulls, intake pipes and native mussels. Within a couple of short years from the time they hitchhiked over from Europe to the Great Lakes in the bilge water of ships, they have cost millions of dollars and created major problems for humans and water critters. The ever-growing stack of publications arriving at Big River's mail box are peppered with announcements of programs, warnings and advice on dealing with one of the Mississippi's newest residents. So far, about the only thing we can do is slow their spread. Nobody has reported zebras in the St. Croix River, yet. A lot of people and organizations want to keep it that way for as long as possible. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and Minnesota-Wisconsin Boundary Area Commission have already launched an educational program to slow their spread into the St. Croix. Check the River Calendar for meeting dates.+
Proposed 400-Slip Marina Draws Opposition The Mdewakanton Sioux have asked for a permit to build a 400-slip, floating marina near the tribe's Treasure Island Casino on Prairie Island. Several environmental groups and agencies are concerned that the marina would cause environmental damage by increasing boat traffic on already overcrowded parts of the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers. Because the marina would be on an Indian reservation, only the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to approve the permit. According to an article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (2-1593), the marina would be the second largest on the two rivers, north of La Crosse. The plan calls for dredging 62,000 cubic yards of material from the river and using it to fill 2.3 acres of wetlands. The pier would be on Sturgeon Lake, a backwater of the Mississippi upstream from Red Wing.+
March 1993
Biologists and Hydrologists Join Forces Traditionally river hydrologists worked to concentrate the river's flow into the main channel, to maintain the ninefoot channel for barge traffic. River biologists have come to realize that maintaining the backwaters is crucial for maintaining healthy populations of fish and other wildlife. Now biologists and hydrologists in the Middle Mississippi are attempting to work more closely together to meet the needs of fish and barges, according to an article in River Crossings (Jan./Feb. 1993), published by the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Agreement (MICRA). The Middle Mississippi is the 195-mile stretch from its confluence with the Missouri River south to its confluence with the Ohio River. Reportedly the St. Louis District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has developed new channel control techniques that do not require capturing all of river's flow into the main channel. MICRA has offered to facilitate communications between hydrologists and biologists from the Corps of Engineers, Illinois and Missouri in order to work out techniques that provide maximum benefits to both navigation and wildlife.+
Pine Coulee Taken Off List Citizen opposition probably played a part in removing a picturesque coulee on the Mississippi River from a list of possible sites for a new waste water treatment plant, according to the newsletter of the St. Croix Valley Sierra Club. The Prescott (Wis.) City Council dropped the site after receiving a petition, with 300 signatures, requesting it to choose a site other than Pine Coulee. Opponents to the site feared groundwater pollution, stagnation at the coulee mouth and degradation of the area's beauty. The deep, limestone walled gorge empties into the Mississippi just south of Prescott.+
Fishing Pier Deadline Looms Local units of government in the seven-county Twin Cities metro area have until March 15 to apply for funding to build fishing piers. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has installed 127 fishing piers since 1984. The piers are built with grants from the Cooperative Opportunities for Resource Enhancement program and maintained by local governments. They are handicapped accessible, have safety railings and help anglers get to the deep water where the big ones lurk.+
Current Events, continued on page 5
Send press realeases, news clippings and meeting notices to Big River, PO Box 741, Winona, MN 55987.
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March 1993
River Calendar MARCH 1 Start of the Minnesota fish and game license year. 5-6 Eagle (and Swan) Watch, eagle information presented Fri. at 7 p.m. at Winona's Holiday Inn, Center Court. Field trip leaves from inn Sat. at 1 p.m. and returns at about 4:30 p.m. Information session free, bus ride for field trip $2.50. For reservations call (507) 454-6758. 6 Downriver Alliance monthly meeting, Boatworks Restaurant, Wabasha, 11 a.m. 6 Safety Seminar, Upper Mississippi Waterway Association,
(612) 776-3108. 8 St. Croix Valley Sierra Club, executive committee meeting, Stillwater Library, 223 N. Fourth St., Stillwater, Minn., 6:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome. 11 Minnesota-Wisconsin Boundary Area Commission
committee meetings. Call (612) 436-7131 or (715) 386-9444. 11 Water Resources Congress, conference on Clinton Administration's water resources policies, Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, Arlington, Va. Call Kathleen Phelps, (703) 5254881. 9-11 Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee 49th Annual Meeting, Chesnut Mountain Ski Lodge, Galena, Ill. For information call Dan at (309) 582-5611. 15 Bluff Land Environment Watch, monthly meeting, Winona Senior Friendship Center, Fifth & Main, Winona, 6 p.m. Discussion of medical waste incineration and ICI Fiberite. 15 Fish houses in Minnesota north of highways 2 & 200 must be off the ice at night. 17 American Waterways Operators, Midwest and Ohio Valley Region spring meeting, Henry VIII Hotel, St. Louis, Mo. Call AWO Midcontinent office, (314) 822-8733. 17-19 Rural Nonpoint Source Pollution in the Upper Midwest, Midway Hotel, La Crosse. Call Linda Schroeder (612) 972-3908. 18-19 Missouri River Natural Resources Committee spring meeting, Airport Hilton, Minneapolis. Call Kent Keenlyne, USFWS, MRNRC, (605) 224-8693. 18-21 St. Cloud Boat, Camping and Vacation Show, Convention Center. 20 Benefit to Save DNR Wildlife Land Along the St. Croix Bluffs Near Bayport, Cajun music by the Bone Tones, 7:30 p.m., Washington County Historic Courthouse, Third & Pine, Stillwater, Minn. 21-24 Watershed '93 - A National Conference on Watershed Management, Radisson Plaza Hotel, Alexandria, Va. Call Janet Pawlukiewicz, US EPA, (202) 260-9194, or Jennifer Paugh, Terrene Institute, (202) 833-8317.
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25-26 Maritime Systems of the Americas, Inter-Continental Hotel, New Orleans. The conference, which will include participants from around the world, will explore increased waterborne trade opportunities in the Western Hemisphere. Contact National Waterways Conference, 1130 17th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036, fax (202) 835-3861. 30-31 Zebra Mussel Workshop '93, Drake Hotel, Chicago. Topics include zebra mussel biology, ecology, monitoring, control and impacts on native species. Contact Larry Sanders, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Experiment Station, 3909 Halls Ferry Rd., Vicksburg, MS 39180-6199, (601) 6342976, fax (601) 634-2398. March 30-April 1 American Waterways Operators, convention and directors meeting, Madison Hotel, Washington, D.C. Call Sherry Hanson, (703) 841-9300. April 1-2 The Interdependency of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, Fourth Missouri River Constituency Conference, St. Louis. Call Charles Hays, Missouri State Water Plan Program, (314) 751-2927. The public is invited to share its opinions with the Minnesota DNR at seven meetings around the state in March, which focus on proposed hunting regulation changes that might take effect next fall. It also seeks hunter reaction to the split waterfowl season. Any pending wildlife legislation is also fair game. All meetings begin at 7 p.m. Two are in the Big River area: Mar. 4 Preston City Hall, 109 St. Paul St., Preston Mar. 23 DNR Building Cafeteria, 500 Lafayette Rd., St. Paul Zebra mussel threat to the Lower St. Croix, informational meetings, open to the public. For information call John Daugherty, National Park Service, (715) 483-3284. Mar. 4 Red Wing Public Library, 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mar. 6 American Legion Hall, Hastings, 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. Dec. 1, 1992 to May 15, 1993 History Beneath the Waves: The Archaeology of Pike's Fort, is a display that tells the story of the U.S. Army expedition led by Lieutenant Pike from St. Louis to the headwaters of the Mississippi River in 1805-1806. The video "Archaeology Beyond the Walls: Tracing Zebulon Pike's Travels in the Mississippi Headwaters" is shown with the exhibit. Fort Snelling State Park, Pike Island Interpretive Center, St. Paul, (612) 725-2389. Feb. 5 to July 31 Exhibit of Mississippi River Photos from a Century Ago are on display at the North Lobby of the Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth St., St. Paul. Henry Bosse took these stunning photos between 1883 and 1891, when he worked as a draftsman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They show steamboats, log rafts, early bridges and scenes of the corps maintaining the navigation channel. When these blue cyanotype photographs were discovered recently experts praised their artistic quality. The exhibit is free.+
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Prairie Island, continued from page 1 the plant. NSP argues that shutting it down would raise electric rates and put a crimp in Minnesota's economic development. The casks would cost $40 million to build and operate until 2013, the end of the plant's operating life. Nuclear foes counter that nuclear energy is not cheap if NSP factors in the cost of storing spent fuel for 10,000 years and the cancer, radiation sickness and deformed births suffered by people should they be exposed to the spent fuel in coming millennia. Antinuclear activists call for NSP to convert to alternative forms of electrical generation, such as wind power. NSP budgeted $39.2 million for developing the capacity to generate 25 megawatts with wind generators in 1994 and set a goal of generating 100 megawatts by 1998. It is also researching other alternative methods of generating electricity, according to NSP.
A Brief History The battle over nuclear storage is in litigation, and probably will be for some time. A brief chronology: In April 1992, an administrative law judge found that expanded storage required legislative approval because it was likely to become permanent and permanent storage is prohibited by state law. Minnesota's Public Utility Commission in August 1992 reversed that finding and granted NSP a certificate of need. The Prairie Island Mdewakanton Sioux Community appealed the decision, joined in court by 18 other groups and, eventually, by 71 legislators who want the Legislature to decide the issue.
At Prairie Island, storage vessels would be steel casks 16 feet, 10 inches tall, made of steel 9.5 inches thick and covered with double-seal lids. A hearing before the Minnesota Court of Appeals, scheduled for March 2, will probably lead to a decision by June. The losing side will, in all likelihood, appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Nuclear plants are relatively scarce along the Mississippi River. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission counts only five of the 111 U.S. nuclear power plants on its banks: Northern States Power Co.'s Monticello plant in central Minnesota and Prairie Island 28 miles downriver from St. Paul; a shut-down plant at Genoa, Wis.; and units at Grand Gulf, Miss., and River Bend, La. In the midst of the temporary storage fracas, the Prairie Island community created a stir when it agreed to consider becoming a long-term storage site for spent nuclear fuel, pending completion of the permanent site. The community applied for and received one of the $100,000 nuclear storage
March 1993
study grants the Department of Energy offered to tribal councils around the U.S. The government positions the grants to place environmental caretaking in the hands of the original environmentalists - Indians. But others see it as particularly insidious racism - luring impoverished reservation dwellers to accept dangerous waste for the sake of economic development. "It amounts to environmental racism," said George Crocker, executive with the North American Water Office, an environmental education group based in Lake Elmo, Minn.
Preparing a Permanent Site The only site under study for permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel is at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Waste fuel would be sealed inside the mountain in a layer of what geologists call welded volcanic tuff about 1,000 feet below the summit. Prospects for that site took a jolt - literally- on June 29, 1992, when a magnitude 5.6 earthquake centered 12.5 miles southeast of Yucca Mountain caused $1 million worth of damage to the site'$ headquarters building. Site scientists remain unshaken, however. Afterwards they examined a tunnel in Little Skull Mountain, the epicenter of the quake, and found little damage. When the earth moves, mountains roll with it, site scientists believe. They conclude that the chambers within Yucca Mountain will be secure.
How Safe Would It Be? Meanwhile, NSP is confident its temporary storage will work. The so-called dry storage technique has been used in the U.S. since 1984. At Prairie Island, storage vessels would be steel casks 16 feet, 10 inches tall, made of steel 9.5 inches thick and covered with double-seal lids. Up to 48 such casks would sit on an outdoor, reenforced-concrete pad. Forty of the 12-foot-long spent fuel rods from the plant's two reactors would be placed in each cask. The rods enriched uranium when they are placed in the reactor's core - transform during their four years of useful life into a variety of radioactive elements. Inside the casks, they would be stored in helium, an inert gas. NSP says an alarm will alert plant operators if one of the two seals is broken. The temporary storage site could withstand an earthquake, tornado, flood and virtually any conceivable natural catastrophe, according to NSP. The concrete pad is on a builtup area that antinuclear activist Campbell said flooded in 1965, the worst flood in recent history. NSP claims that the built-up site would stay dry in all but a 1,000-year flood - that is, one expected on average only once every 1,000 years. In a 1,000-year flood, the casks would get wet about two-thirds of the way up. The 1965 inundation, by comparison, was calculated as a 135-year flood by the Army Corps of Engineers - that is, a
Prairie Island, continued next page
March 1993
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Prairie Island, continued from previous page
Current Events, continued from page 2
flood that would be expected on average once every 135 years. Not even the Mississippi in full flood would tip the 122ton casks, according to NSP. What about corrosion? "They're essentially built like a battleship," NSP' s Kapitz said. "Put a battleship in salt water for 50 to 70 years and you don't see them dissolve away." But what if a cask tipped over in a flood, breaking the double seal? Would the soil of the flood plain drain contaminants directly into the groundwater? Or would the river flush the contamination downstream? Enter state lawmakers. "That," said Rep. Alice Hausman, a St. Paul DFLer, "is exactly the sort of question we ought to have at a hearing in front of the Legislature." Legislators believe the 1984 amendments to the state's Radioactive Waste Management Act that forbid permanent nuclear waste storage in Minnesota are clear enough, and legislative action isn't expected pending the Appeals Court decision.
Good Reviews for New Secretary
The concrete pad is on a built-up area that antinuclear activist Campbell said flooded in 1965, the worst flood in recent history. But something may yet stir this session. Sen. Gene Merriam, who sponsored the 1984 amendments, wonders why the Legislature doesn't act on its own. "This is in the purview of the Legislature," Merriam said. "What's at issue is whether or not NSP can build this thing without legislative approval. If we come in and tell them they can or can't, it makes more sense than to litigate it." While courts and legislatures mull the matter, the ultimate irony is this: If the government doesn't bury the waste, perhaps the river will. Ten thousand years ago, the Mississippi was a bluff-to-bluff torrent of glacial meltwater. If the glaciers return before the government gets around to finding a burial site - which sometimes seems like a distinct possibility- the final resting place for NSP's spent fuel may be deep in the mud of the big river.+
Marc Hequet is a freelance journalist based in St. Paul and a regular contributor to Time.
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The press and politicians both sound optimistic about George Meyer, the new secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Meyer, who grew up on a dairy farm in Calumet County, appears to appreciate the point of view of farmers, yet he wants stricter enforcement against careless landowners. A career DNR employee, he promises to be a coalition builder and stresses the importance of accountability to the public.+
Beavers Population Sinks Last fall's beaver survey indicates that Wisconsin has about 25 percent fewer beavers that it had in 1989, the peak year of recent surveys. The Wisconsin State Journal (2-3-93) cited Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials, who said a helicopter survey of the northern part of the state found about 70,000 beavers. There are between 110,000 and 120,000 beavers in the entire state, according to its estimates. They were all but extinct in Wisconsin at the turn of the century.+
Corps Cutback on Hold The new Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, put the reorganization of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on hold until he reviews the plan, according to a story in The Waterways Journal (2-15-93). The reorganization would eliminate about 2,600 jobs and relocate thousands more to 15 technical centers. It would close corps division offices in Chicago and Omaha. The St. Paul District would gain jobs under the plan.+
Computers Capture Bluegill Information Though bluegills are the most often caught fish in Minnesota, fisheries managers have a hard time netting information about their populations because they move around a lot from month to month. However, new computer models - built with bluegill data from hundreds of lakes should help managers come up with a better picture of bluegill populations, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.+
Big River is published monthly by Big River, PO Box 741,
Iowa Riverboat Casinos Heading South
Winona, MN 55987, (507) 454-6758. Subscriptions are $18 for one year, $35 for two years or $2 per single issue. Reggie McLeod editor/publisher Pamela Eyden assistant editor
In July two of Iowa's five original riverboat casinos moved to Mississippi. Then the owner of the Dubuque Casino Belle said the boat would be sold to Missouri developers. Now, rumors predict that The President Riverboat Casino, of Davenport, may move back to St. Louis, its former port, after the 1993 season. This increases pressure on the Iowa legislature to increase state-mandated limits of $5 per bet and $200 maximum loss per cruise, according to an article in The Waterways Journal (2-8-93). +
Big River, Volume 1, Number 3, copyrightŠ March 1993. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Printed on recycled paper.
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March 1993
Musseling into the Upper Mississippi Adult Zebra Mussel Sightings
Lower St Anthony Falls 1 sighting 2 mussels St. CroixR.
Wisconsin
Pool4 •• 4 sightings •••• •• 20 mussels
Minnesota
Pool6 2sightings 61 mussels
Pool 5 & 5a 8 sightings 94 mussels
Black R. 1 sighting 25 mussels
Pool 7 •••• 10 sightings 32 mussels
Iowa
•La Crosse •••••••• Pool 8 •••• 18 sightings • Genoa 145 mussels
Lansing• Pool9 13 sightings 5,051 mussels
Pool 10 ••••••••••• 3 sightings 27mussels Guttenberg•
Wisconsin R.
Pool 11 6 sightings ••• 6 mussels
.
Zebra mussels, which are native to Eurasia, have Dubuque * ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,. caused serious problems since their infestation of the Great Lakes. The small mussels attach themselves tightly to objects in the water, Illinois Pool 12 clogging water intake pipes and crowding out other species of mussels. 1 sighting ••• Pool 13 Scott Whitney, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, made the first 1 mussel •• 2 sightings official sighting of zebra mussels in the Mississippi, in Pool 8, on 9 mussels September 12, 1991. Since then they have spread rapidly, as far upstream as the Lower St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam. To slow their spread, wash watercraft and avoid transferring water from one body of water to another, especially in minnow buckets and live wells in boats. See Current Events for more news about zebra mussels.+ The information on this map was collected and compiled by the Winona Fisheries Resource Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.