Technology and society: The Minnesota power-line wars: Elaborate efforts by the state to mediate a power-industry public-interest dispute resulted largely in lessons on what not to do

It was a familiar scene in today's environmentally conscious society. In the snow and freezing cold, some 300 demonstrators linked arms in Stearns County, Minn. They sang and effectively blocked all vehicles from taking workers and materials to a construction site, Shortly after dawn that day in February 1978, about 100 state troopers moved in, and the battle started. Some of the demonstrators set fire to bales of hay, creating a smokescreen through which they hurled chunks of ice and snow at the police. Others sprayed ammonia from a fertilizer tank. The state troopers arrested at least 30 people.