Seven Hundred Yards Pt. 3: Seven Generations to Come — Episode 212 of Local Energy Rules

Andrea Zimmerman:
I think this is particularly relevant for those of us working on clean energy solutions, that we’re not recreating problems from the past and making sure that those affected by solutions really have a voice in that decision making process.

John Farrell:
Northern States Power didn’t seek consent from Prairie Island Indian Community when it decided to cite a nuclear plant next to the Tribal nation in the early 1970s. But in the years since, community advocates have forced the utility, currently doing business as Xcel Energy, to acknowledge the impact that the plant has had on them and to invest in renewable energy alternatives.
This three-episode podcast series traces that history, examining how powerful players from the electric utility to state and federal policymakers sited the plant and its waste right next door to Prairie Island Indian Community and how Tribal members and their allies have stood up for their rights and the process growing a clean energy future for the community and for Minnesota as a whole.
In the first two episodes, we learned how Northern States Power or NSP built the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant less than 700 yards away from the Prairie Island Indian Community and how state policymakers later allowed the utility to store waste on onsite in dry casks over the community’s objections.
In this final episode, we’re looking to the present to see what’s happened in Minnesota’s energy landscape in the 30 years since the 1994 state law that greenlit dry cask storage of nuclear waste on Prairie Island. We also find out how Prairie Island Indian Community has been building their own renewable energy legacy with the net zero project, which aims to reduce the community’s emissions, lower energy costs, and put decision-making power back in the hands of Tribal members.
I’m John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and this is episode three in our three part series, Seven Hundred Yards: How a Native Nation Resisted the Nuclear Plant Next Door. It’s a production of Local Energy Rules, a biweekly podcast about monopoly, power, energy democracy, and how communities can take charge to transform the energy system.
The continued presence of the nuclear plant and nuclear waste on Prairie Island is one part of the legacy of NSP’s choice to build the plant there and state legislators’ 1994 decision to allow the utility to store spent fuel on site at the plant. Since the 1994 law, NSP has continued to expand the amount of dry cask storage at the Prairie Island Nuclear Plant, from the 17 casks originally permitted to 50 casks today, with dozens more in the works. The utility relicensed the plant in 2011 and in early 2024, it proposed extending the life of the plant by another 20 years beyond its current license, which ends in 2033.
But this isn’t the complete legacy of that 1994 decision. Prairie Island Councilman Michael Childs Jr. shared how one major outcome of the law was also the massive growth of renewable energy in Minnesota.

Michael Childs, Jr.:
A lot of times I think people forget that — that renewable energy standards in Minnesota were created because Prairie Island Nuclear Plant needed spent fuel storage, and actually, that renewable energy was supposed to replace Prairie Island. And even people in the general public, the government, I have to sometimes remind them, the renewable energy was dictated back in ’94 for Prairie Island Nuclear Plant continuing with dry cast storage. You know, even though I’m an Xcel Energy retiree, I see the windmills and it ticks me off because they were forced to do it, right?

John Farrell:
As part of the 1994 legislation allowing dry cask storage of spent fuel at Prairie Island, the utility that owned the plant, NSP had to invest in a certain amount of renewable energy and pay into a Renewable Development Fund. This supercharged renewable energy development in Minnesota, according to David Morris, a co-founder of ILSR, and Rick Duncan, a lawyer who represented Prairie Island Indian Community during the 1994 legislative fight.

David Morris:
What the legislature said was that they would grant the Northern States Power 17 dry casks, which would take them to about 2003 in terms of their storage capacity, but in return they had to do several things and one of them was to buy a certain amount or contract for a certain amount of renewable energy. It was the first state in the country that had essentially a renewable mandate from one of its utilities companies. And although the numbers might not be that meaningful to people, it was 225 megawatts that they had to bring online by 1996 and another 200 megawatts by 2001 and then another 400 megawatts — so almost doubling the amount that the legislature insisted — if the Public Utility Commission agreed that by that time it was the lowest cost alternative. And we were very instrumental in getting the Public Utility Commission to sign off on that.
So out of that Prairie Island renewable… the renewable aspect of it came, in essence the next 20 years of renewable development in Minnesota. It made Minnesota a leader in renewable development. There was a lot of things that came off as a secondary effect, as a tertiary effect and so forth.
By 2007 — so we’re talking 1994 law that mandated a certain amount of renewables, and those renewables that ended up being something like 1200 megawatts of renewables was about the amount of renewables that Xcel generated by 2007. So, it essentially was a mandate that carried all the way up to unfortunately 2007 when prices had dropped significantly both for solar and for wind, and the sentiment was overwhelming that they needed to increase the renewables.

Rick Duncan:
The wind power after NSP fought and kicked and screamed against it and said, oh, we can’t do this, it’s going to hurt the rate payers and everything. Well, actually it turned out to be not just possible, but, as we thought and expected, a real addition to the energy independence and renewables in Minnesota. And both NSP and other utilities in the state have really latched on to wind power as a way to meet a lot of our needs. Solar power has come too, but that was more later. So I think the ultimate result of it was to sort of jumpstart the transition to more renewable forms of energy in Minnesota.

John Farrell:
In 2022, nearly a third of the electricity generated in Minnesota was from renewable sources, largely from wind, and Minnesota is among the top 10 states in the country for wind energy generation. North American Water Office co-founder George Crocker believes that the impact of the renewable energy mandate in the 1994 dry cask legislation even extended beyond Minnesota.

George Crocker:
What in fact we did at Prairie Island was jack the entire North American electric utility industry into the modern era. Before the Prairie Island fight, there was no utility scale renewable energy in North America. After the Prairie Island fight and because of the Prairie Island fight, there was, and now NSP, Xcel Energy runs all over the world bragging about how good they are with renewable energy and what a leader they are in renewable energy development and how socially concerned and responsible they are for all of their commitment to renewable energy. While they’re still right now attempting to relicense Prairie Island for the second time. They now have not 17 but 50 casks on Prairie Island.

John Farrell:
Although the 1994 law had established the Renewable Development Fund, now called the Renewable Development Account or RDA, and required NSP and its later corporate parent Xcel Energy to pay into it in return for dry cask storage, for a long time, Prairie Island Indian Community could not benefit from those funds. This is because the community doesn’t actually receive electricity from the utility, which in practice was a requirement to use the money.

Andrea Zimmerman:
Prairie Island for a long time as a Tribe had not been able to access that funding and so the Tribe was advocating for several years to be able to do so and there was broad support, but for a variety of different legislative reasons. It just wasn’t passed until 2020 and at that point, the Tribe received an allocation of $46.2 million from the RDA and that really allowed the Tribe to take a major step forward.

John Farrell:
That’s the voice of Andrea Zimmerman, who you also heard at the start of the episode.

Andrea Zimmerman:
I’m the Energy Program Manager with the Prairie Island Indian Community, and my role is really helping Prairie Island achieve its goal to become a net zero carbon emissions community. Something that impressed me really early on in the work before I arrived and back to the original part of the net zero goal, the Tribe had decided that the goal and the efforts of the community would really focus on reducing emissions on site, addressing the carbon emissions footprint that exists here rather than simply purchasing through a financial mechanism carbon credits and taking credit for those well I think really shifts the burden of action to another community. The Tribe wanted to take on that burden of action themselves, and that’s something that I think is fundamentally important for all communities to do wherever they can.

John Farrell:
Prairie Island Indian Community’s net zero goal is a big undertaking, but the funds that they received in 2020 have really helped push the project forward so far, the community’s efforts have included building a solar farm, electrifying Tribal businesses and home energy upgrades for community residents.

Andrea Zimmerman:
We are getting to net zero step-by-step, so what that means is we started with a plan. We really looked at, as I mentioned, where we are today and where we needed to get, and then what are the possible and best paths to get there. So Prairie Island really focused on the most critical emission centers in the community as well as ways to provide additional benefits that could sustain the project long-term and provide meaningful solutions for Tribal members as well, who may not have as much of an emissions burden, but still are an important part of considering what should take place within the community.
So the Minnesota state funds that the Tribe received back in 2020 really gave us a huge step forward in being able to fund and implement projects. Right now we have two very large first tranche projects that are underway. One’s about to wrap up, our solar project, and then our commercial electrification and geothermal project is about midway and we’ll wrap up early to mid 2025.
So the solar project, as I mentioned right now we’re in final stages of construction and testing. It’s a 5.4 megawatt DC solar project located in the community, and we are selling the power through a power purchase agreement back to the utility, which will then serve the surrounding community. And then the commercial electrification project really focuses on transitioning Treasure Island Resort and Casino, which is the commercial center and economic engine of the Tribe, as much as possible from natural gas to cleaner electric using a combination of geothermal and heat pumps.

John Farrell:
Prairie Island Indian Community isn’t only focused on getting clean energy for commercial buildings. The Tribe is also looking forward to bringing some of the benefits of their net zero investments to community members through a Tribal homes energy project.

Andrea Zimmerman:
This allows us to support Tribal members directly to work with them to do energy audits on their homes and then make significant energy improvements through upgrades and installation of new equipment to save energy, reduce their emissions, hopefully be more comfortable, and then save money as well. While it may not have the scale of emissions impact that some of our commercial work does, it brings clean energy to individual homes and community members and provides benefits in a way that the commercial side just does not, and I think that’s really special for the whole community and makes a real difference in individual people’s and families lives

John Farrell:
Throughout, the Net Zero project has focused on involving Tribal members in the decision-making process.

Andrea Zimmerman:
So from the beginning of the project, and this predates me, Tribal leaders emphasized heavily the importance of making sure that community values and community voices were reflected in the project and that this wasn’t just a top-down effort. And so to that goal, early in the planning, the net zero planning process, we conducted community meetings, focus groups, interviews, surveys with Tribal members, a variety of ages — elders, young people who are the future of the community — all ages to get input and that input really helped shape the priorities and focus of the plan and really I think has helped shape the project and what it looks like today.
I would say largely the net zero project has a lot of community support and a lot of the feedback that may be more constructive improvements, I would say has been actually really helpful in making sure that the projects we’re developing align with community values and community needs. Siting a solar project, for example, is an important part of community conversation and life. The project will be there for the next 30 years, so making sure we put it in the right place and set it up for success is really important.

John Farrell:
Part of this community involvement has included job training for community members.

Andrea Zimmerman:
We also developed a workforce program this past summer to support the projects that we have underway and give Tribal members an opportunity to explore what clean energy careers look like, to take part in the work we’re doing to actually be the ones helping to build this work within the community, and develop and hone their own skills while getting paid for their support. I think just based on the work that happened this summer, I saw we got better work, we got better projects than we would have without the community members involved. It’s very different to have people involved who care as deeply as the community members do. Particularly on the solar project, we had five community members including Tina Jefferson for part of the term work on all aspects of the project, and we started out thinking, oh, they’ll build, they’ll be able to build one row and that’ll be great, and they ended up building a huge portion of the project and being involved in so many more aspects of it than we had initially envisioned.

Tina Jefferson:
It was a really good crew. It was a really good experience. It was good to be able to work with others who have the same goal in mind and to meet all of the people that they work with. The reason why I thought it was such a good idea is because it will help us increase our green thumbprints, be an example, be a good example of how to take care of these things that we need without creating more nuclear power. Eventually we will get to that point where people realize that the more that we can expand and do alternatives, the less we have to rely on that nuclear because it is going to be here for a long time.

John Farrell:
Though the Prairie Island community continues to deal with the nearby nuclear waste, that legacy and the net zero project are just part of the course the Native Nation is charting for themselves, which also includes the return of bison to Prairie Island, land restoration for native foods, and teaching the Dakota language to a new generation. However, Andrea Zimmerman thinks the investments in renewable energy for the Tribe are part of the beginning to address the harms of the nuclear generating plant, the history of which should serve as a lesson for future clean energy development in Prairie Island and in other communities.

Andrea Zimmerman:
The Tribe’s ability access the funds is I would say one step in providing some small measure of justice to a community which is bearing the burden of hosting this nuclear plant essentially. That said, I think that the net zero project is unique in a lot of ways in that it’s by the community for the community rather than an external third party placing this on the community without proper consultation and consent.
I learned about the Prairie Island Nuclear Plant and the history when I joined Prairie Island Indian Community two years ago. As a person who lives in Minnesota and believes in clean energy, I think that I should have known about this a long time ago, right? And I certainly wish I had the bigger picture and I think the more we share the story and the history, the more broadly, most people are really glad to know that broader context and find it important to know. I think learning about the nuclear plant for me is really a lesson in how something that is well intentioned — roviding energy to Minnesotans — can become deeply problematic when proper consultation with individuals that are going to be most affected is not done well, and that proper consideration for the consequences is not made. And I think this is particularly relevant for those of us working on clean energy solutions, that we’re not recreating problems from the past and making sure that those affected by solutions really have a voice in that decision making process.

John Farrell:
Tina Jefferson also described the Net Zero project as a kind of culmination of the efforts over the years of the many Tribal members who have used their voices to make sure Prairie Island Indian Community has a say. People like her late father Joseph Campbell, who set up his tipi at the Minnesota State Capitol for a week to protest and to educate people about the nuclear plant on Prairie Island.

Tina Jefferson:
At the Net Zero project when we were finished, finally, and we had our little ceremony or whatever, I started crying because it took this many years for that to happen, and I was so thankful that I got to be there and be a part of it and see all the hard work and dedication that the people did do, and it was too bad that they weren’t there to see it.
It is very powerful for a small group of people to be able to make a difference like we did here, and like I said, this is the safest plant in the United States because of us. I feel it’s because of us pushing and pushing and pushing and telling them no, just because you are a corporation, you still need to answer to somebody, to the people that you provide this service to. I appreciate all the people outside that we don’t know very well or didn’t, and they played a part, but it might’ve been a little part, but it was enough to get our message out there and to make everybody else realize that we do care. We do want to make it a better planet for us and for seven generations to come, and then seven generations after that. We want to be, you know- We want to make sure that we’re not just leaving a mess behind. I wasn’t part of the creation of the mess, but if I wasn’t actively involved, then I would be no better than anybody else.

John Farrell:
Thank you for listening to the final episode of Seven Hundred Yards: How a Native Nation Resisted the Nuclear Plant Next Door, a three-part series from Local Energy Rules. For more content and information related to today’s episode, please check out the accompanying StoryMap. A link to this page is in the show notes.
A quick note on the language we used in this episode. We used the word Tribe as well as the term Indian in the context of Prairie Island Indian Community’s federally recognized name. European colonial powers develop these terms to otherwise and subjugate native peoples, and they can be used today to diminish the sovereignty of Native Nations. We opted to use these terms in the podcast because of the context in which they’re used and because many Native and non-native people continue to use these words. We acknowledged that this is an imperfect decision.
Katie Kienbaum produced Seven Hundred Yards with assistance from Jo Green. Local Energy Rules is produced by me and Maria McCoy. Editing, music, and sound production is by Andrew Frank. Thank you to everyone we interviewed or who otherwise helped us put this series together, including Michael Childs, Tina Jefferson, Andrea Zimmerman, Heather Westra, Eric Pehle, George Crocker, Rick Duncan, David Morris, Kate Taylor Mighty, and John Bailey.
ILSR’S offices are located on land that was and is stewarded by Indigenous peoples. This includes an office in the traditional territory of the Dakota people in what is also known as Minneapolis, an office in the traditional territory of the Wabanaki Confederacy, which currently comprises the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Abenaki, and Micmac nations, in what is also known as Portland, Maine. ILSR’s hometown is in the traditional territory of the Nacotchtank or Anacostan and Piscataway peoples, in what is also known as Washington, D.C. ILSR recognizes supports and advocates for the sovereignty of Native Nations.
Tune back in to Local Energy Rules every two weeks to hear more powerful stories of communities taking on concentrated power to transform the energy system. Until next time, keep your energy local and thanks for listening.

• StoryMap: The Nuclear Plant Next Door

• Prairie Island Indian Community website
• Tinta Wita/Prairie Island Indian Community – Minn. Indian Affairs Council
• Prairie Island Indian Community powering seven generations with clean energy (2021) – Clean Energy Resource Teams
• Prairie Island Indian Community nuclear concern powers net zero carbon emissions plan (2022) – Sahan Journal
• Renewable energy investments offer opportunities for Prairie Island Indian Community (2023) – Center for Rural Affairs
• Prairie Island Net Zero Project Progress Report (2023) – Prairie Island Indian Community

• Bdote Memory Map
• Dakota Land Maps and Place Names – Marlena Myles and Dahi
• Dakota of Minnesota – Dakota Wicohan

Xcel asks for more nuclear waste storage to operate Prairie Island until 2050s (2024) – StarTribune

• Minnesota State Profile and Energy Estimates – U.S. Energy Information Administration