Mrs. Thomsen was a longtime summer resident of the St. Croix River Valley who became highly involved in the "Save the St. Croix" movement. This grassroots organization developed quickly in the 1964 in opposition to the plans of the Northern States Power Company to build a coal-burning power plant along the St. Croix at Bayport, Minnesota. Due to her writing skills and knowledge of the political process and the newspaper business, she served as the group's publicist while it attempted to sway public opinion and to gain attention and support from nationwide environmental groups and sympathetic elected officials. In the interview, Mrs. Thomsen tells of Save the St. Croix's unsuccessful campaign to prevent the granting of the plant permit to NSP. She describes the reactions of St. Croix Valley residents and government agencies to teh controversy and expresses her views as to why NSP won this decision and the effects of this dispute on subsequent public concern over environmental issues.