South Dakota
Stopping Coal in Its Tracks
Loosely affiliated activists draw a hard line -- and hold it
by Ted Nace; illustrations by Linda Zacks
Published in the January/February 2008 issue of Orion
Most members of the [No New Coal Plants] list live in areas that have already felt the effects of coal projects and are facing more development. Elisa Young, an activist in Meigs County, Ohio, can count four coal-fired power plants within ten miles of her home and faces five more that are planned. Mary Jo Stueve grew up in Minnesota across the South Dakota borderfrom the Big Stone I power plant; she's now a staff member with South Dakota Clean Water Action, fighting a proposed second unit of the plant. Read the full article..
Resources for Coal Fighters
Extra to "Stopping Coal in Its Tracks," published in the January/February 2008 issue of Orion
by Ted Nace
New Breed in South Dakota—Water Hogs
When will we develop the clean energy resources we have at hand and start to grow the South Dakotan economy for and with South Dakotans, using South Dakota resources responsibly?
Elk Point's recently revealed Gorilla project (oil refinery) and Otter Tail's Big Stone II (630 MW coal plant) have a lot in common. Both need massive amounts of water to operate. In the case of BSII double for back up just in case of a sustained drought, imagine that.
Never mind the predictions related to global warming, of temperature rise, flood and drought extremes and vanishing wetlands via which South Dakota aquifers and rivers and lakes recharge. Never mind those experts who say that South Dakota, indeed the whole West, cannot expect to regain levels and flows once viewed as standard and fluctuating within an expected range. Never mind that we need water to live or that the Missouri River drips along at times, its waters mismanaged, drained and diverted in ways unwise.
After all, both these projects provide economic gain, right?
But who will pay when South Dakota farmers, and irrigators, and cities and townspeople need to find new water and dig new wells because the new breed of water hogs, the Gorilla and BSII, received state sanction to come in and drain our resources dry
Step It Up 2007
Clean Water Action staff and concerned citizens gathered across the country to participate in Step It Up 2007 and to call on Congress to "Cut Carbon 80% by 2050."
Check out this report,"An Inconvenient Truth at a Convenient Site," from Mary Jo Stueve, Clean Water Action State Program Coordinator, on events in South Dakota.
