Legalectric

Just a week ago public comments on the Hollydale transmission line case closed, the week before that was the public hearing, and just before that was the bizarre meeting with the Dept. of Commerce.  And today?

TODAY WE GET THIS:

Hollydale – Petition to Withdraw Pending Certificate of Need and Route Permit Applications

EEEEEEEEE-HA!

It’ll go to the Commission to tie up the loose ends, but YES!!!  Xcel is withdrawing the application and going away… for a while… so they say:

Oh, and by withdrawing, they are not bound by the law because it specifies applications made by a certain date… then it will not apply!  So they’re getting around it, but they say they are not.  Oh well, I don’t think they’ll try the same trick again.

This past year the Hollydale Law, 2013 Minn. Laws Chapter 57 Section 2, which is
applicable to our currently pending applications, was passed. While the law, as
currently written, would not apply to the new applications, we fully intend to comply with the intention of the law by carrying forward in our new Certificate of Need application all the system alternatives, including distribution alternatives, which were developed during this proceeding. We believe this will allow a robust examination of numerous distribution alternatives and will address the concerns implicated by the Hollydale Law.

and:

Once we develop a more widely accepted solution, we intend to seek the appropriate regulatory approvals.

The down side is that by withdrawing, they are not bound by the law that is limited to applications filed by a certain date, so that law might have to be changed to fence them in.  No problem…

Now the down side is they say they’ll be baaaaaaaaack.  I’d guess they’ll be much more cautious and conscious of what they propose, and for Dog’s sake not be using 2006 information.  DOH!

7 oh-so-young pups, one older pup, 3 adolescents and one 2-3 year old, all from Tennessee and now at foster homes in WI and MN.

7 little poop factories who held it until just seconds after transferring into our crate, and each and every one let loose!!!  Thankfully lots of quilts made that situation manageable!

All of them slept the whole way, barely a sound for hours.  All but Birdo, the lapdog for the trip, he was a dear guy, keeping a watchful eye on the pups, and navigating.  Considering what the weather could have been, it was not bad at all, roads blowy but clear, hammer down!!!  Just the nervous nellies slowing up the process when there wasn’t a passable passing lane…

Here ’tis!

POLYMET ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS

I’ll be five years next month that I’ve been working on the Goodhue Wind Project, or as Goodhue County notes, New Era Wind Farm, LLC f/k/a AWA Goodhue Wind, LLC, f/k/a Goodhue Wind, LLC.

This photo was taken by Marie McNamara in the Goodhue Wind Project footprint, can you spell E-A-G-L-E-S?

It was the project from hell, with SO many problems, built of cards and arrogant misrepresentations, bought and dropped like a hot potato by T. Boone Pickens, and finally, operating out of a P.O. Box:

We learned Monday that the County was going to take up the project.  Goodhue Wind Truth had requested the County Resolution supporting the project from 2008 be rescinded way back in October, after the PUC had terminated the project permits, and had requested time to speak to the County board.  Turns out there was a lot more that had to be done, and that included the County Development Agreement, and multiple conditional use permits.  So that makes sense to take the time to do it right and get it ALL done.  BUT, we got no notice, no information about what agreement had been reached.  It was the last agenda item.  They agreed to make the County Attorney/Board legal memo public, and when I asked if there were copies for the public, “NO!” and Commissioner Ron Allen laughed.  Yeah, to you and yours too… anyway, then they approved it.

Five years Goodhue Wind Truth struggled with this, and were proven ahead of the curve at every juncture.

Look at what the county had agreed to, this is why another agreement was necessary to get out of it:

And the county is probably taking quite a hit:

There needs to be a “lessons learned” session after this mess… the lesson I take from it is the necessity of intervention in county permitting, costly but the only way to keep on top of it.

URGENT — MIA: All the big “environmental” groups — the Minnesota Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Fresh Energy, Izaak Walton League, Clean Water Action.  ALL were no-shows!

Greetings from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission!

Yesterday was  a long, long day, out the door just after 8 a.m. to get through the woods and over the river to the Rulemaking Advisory Committee for Minn. R. Ch. 7849 & 7850.  ZZZZZZZZZZZZ.  Then back, over the river and through the woods, with just a couple hours to study and get out the door and over the river and through the traffic jam to Minnetonka (how convenient) for an evening with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

Here’s Alan Muller doing his thing at the “meeting” that wasn’t a “hearing.”

Here’s the NRC page that has their info on this:

NRC Nuclear Waste Confidence Page

And here’s the actual rule that’s proposed — it took a lot of digging to find it and I needed help, but here it is:

Proposed NuclearWasteConfidenceRule

And here are the full documents for comment, the GEIS is very strange:

Nuclear Waste Confidence Rule_Proposed

Nuclear Waste GEIS

And note the Prairie Island Indian Community’s role in this case that resulted in the vacating of the Nuclear Waste Confidence Rule, with THREE reps showing up last night:

NY v NRC-Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision 11-1045-1377720

What’s strangest about this rulemaking is the way this is framed, they backwards engineered it “to support the rule.” Look at how “Issue 3” is framed below, and also “Issue 1” (click for a larger version).

No, that’s not how you do it folks.  You do the GEIS and then you find out what it says.  Maybe it supports the rule, maybe it doesn’t, it is what it is.  But nooooooooo, that’s not how they do things at the NRC.

We have until December 20, 2013 to send comments to:

• Email comments to: Rulemaking.Comments@nrc.gov. If you do not receive an automatic email reply confirming receipt, then contact us at 301–415–1677.

• Fax comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at 301–415–1101.

• Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555–0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.

• Hand deliver comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (Eastern Time) Federal workdays; telephone: 301–415–1677.

I put a few choice things in the record, because the idea they can safely store nuclear waste indefinitely, and until a “repository” is built, well…. dream on, when might that happen?  And Dog help us if it does…  Confidence?  NO!

Premature Degradation of Spent Fuel Storage Cask Structures and Components from Environmental Moisture

INEL “unloads” TN-24P – stuck

Creep & Crud of Nuclear Waste Storage

And here’s Alan at the Sierra Club table, Pam Mackey-Taylor the IOWA Sierra Club.  And John LaForge/Nukewatch was there too.  It was disturbing, but not surprising that not one of the big funded “environmental” groups showed up last night, and it says a lot about Xcel’s ability to buy them off.  Iowa Sierra Club’s Wally Taylor was the one testifying… not North Star Chapter, no Clean Water Action, no Fresh Energy, no Izaak Walton League (but we know how much Bill Grant loves nuclear), no Audubon. No, no, no, no, not there.  Absent, one and all.

Note the cops in the background — the NRC found it necessary to bring in police protection, two uniformed and I think one not in uniform.  What are they afraid of?

Home a couple of minutes before midnight… rulemaking taking over a day.