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Elizabeth Baier
Red Wing, Minn.

Prairie Island joins nuclear waste legal challenge

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The Prairie Island Indian Community has joined a lawsuit filed by three states against the federal government's final rule on the storage of nuclear waste

In August, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a rule that allows for on-site nuclear waste storage for 100 years or more. It took effect Oct. 20.

The tribe joined New York, Connecticut and Vermont in filing the lawsuit against the commission. The nuclear power plant near Red Wing is about 600 yards from the tribal community.

"What the NRC has done is effectively side-stepped that mandate because they just simply assume that the waste will never be exposed to the environment," Prairie Island General Counsel Phil Mahowald said.

Mahowald said the commission failed to do a complete analysis of the risks associated with on-site storage of nuclear waste. He said that was a requirement in a 2012 Court of Appeals decision.

"The tribe wants there to be a realistic assessment of the long-term environmental, the long-term health impacts that would be associated with indefinite on-site storage," he said.