Legalectric

Seems that they’re making an effort in Hungary to design industrial edifices more user-friendly…  from the Telegraph.  Couldn’t they just use a big eagle nest as a hat?

Yesterday was a busy day for Goodhue Wind Truth.

First was a Motion to the Appellate Court:

Goodhue Wind Truth – Motion for Intervention/Request for Participation as Amicus Curiae

Next was our Petition for Rulemaking, filed yesterday as a part of our Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing Comments, and formally filed with Dr. Haar at the Public Utilities Commission.

Petition for Rulemaking

The PUC is in charge of the Wind siting rules, well, the EQB was directed by the legislature in 1995 to promulgate rules, and finally in January, 2008, the Commission finalized the siting rules for wind projects under 25 MW (and above 5 MW):

PUC Order – Siting of Wind Projects under 25 MW

And for projects 25 MW and above, they haven’t done anything, that was 17 years ago, so here we are… do we have to get a Writ of Mandamus?

WAKE UP PUC!  Time to do some wind rules!

216F.05 RULES.

The commission shall adopt rules governing the consideration of an application for a site permit for an LWECS that address the following:

(1) criteria that the commission shall use to designate LWECS sites, which must include the impact of LWECS on humans and the environment;

(2) procedures that the commission will follow in acting on an application for an LWECS;

(3) procedures for notification to the public of the application and for the conduct of a public information meeting and a public hearing on the proposed LWECS;

(4) requirements for environmental review of the LWECS;

(5) conditions in the site permit for turbine type and designs; site layout and construction; and operation and maintenance of the LWECS, including the requirement to restore, to the extent possible, the area affected by construction of the LWECS to the natural conditions that existed immediately before construction of the LWECS;

(6) revocation or suspension of a site permit when violations of the permit or other requirements occur; and

(7) payment of fees for the necessary and reasonable costs of the commission in acting on a permit application and carrying out the requirements of this chapter.

T. Boone Pickens’ AWA Goodhue AVIAN AND BAT PROTECTION PLAN was to be on the Public Utilities Commission agenda on Thursday.  That’s too soon, they just dumped hundreds of pages of info on us, and on the reviewing agencies, week before last:

AWA Goodhue Fall Migration Study

Revised AWA Goodhue Avian and Bat Protection Plan

And here’s the primary documents that caused the ruckus — the ABPP plan from hell and agency comments on it:

AVIAN AND BAT PROTECTION PLAN

USFWS Comments on AWA Goodhue’s Avian and Bat Protection Plan

DNR Comments on AWA Goodhue Avian & Bat Protection Plan

Given the specificity and many pages of comments, it’d take a bit more than a week to analyze the Comments (WHICH WERE WITHHELD BY COMMERCE FOR A WEEK AND NOT FILED UNTIL JANUARY 19!) and determine whether AWA Goodhue had properly addressed them.

I was floored by their last minute filings, and filed a Motion with the PUC to take it off the agenda:

Goodhue Wind Truth Motion for Extension

And not too long after, day or two, the PUC did indeed pull it off the agenda and didn’t reschedule:

PUC Notice of Withdrawal of Agenda Item

And now for the bad news today… the Appellate Court has tossed out the Goodhue Wind Truth appeal on a jurisdictional issue, that the Petition for Writ wasn’t served by personal service or Certified Mail.  This sucks in a big way…

Order to Dismiss Goodhue Wind Truth Appeal of AWA Goodhue Certificate of Need and Site Permit

It’s based on a Supreme Court decision in 2009, when the rules changed, or rather, interpretation of the rules, making service as specified under the Administrative Procedure Act a jurisdictional issue — if a Petition for Writ is not served personally or by Certified Mail, the Appellate Court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case.

In the Matter of the Risk Level Determination of J.M.T.

D-I-S-M-I-S-S-E-D.

Solar Flare – Washington Post/AP

Thanks to Kelly Fuller for the heads up.  A 2.206 Petition has been filed about the unsafe conditions at the Ft. Calhoun and Cooper plant.  Note that the Petitions were from July, 2011, and it takes six months for it to rise up to the Federal Register.

Here it is:

[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 15 (Tuesday, 
January 24, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Page 3515]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government 
Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-1370]

[[Page 3515]]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

[Docket No. 50-285, License No. DPR-40; Docket No. 50-298, 
License No. DPR-46; NRC-2012-0014]

Request for Action Against Omaha Public Power District 
and Nebraska Public Power District

    Notice is hereby given that by petitions dated 
June 26 and July 3, 2011, respectively, Thomas Saporito 
(the petitioner) has requested that the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) take 
escalated enforcement actions against Omaha Public 
Power District, the licensee for Fort Calhoun Station, 
Unit 1 (FCS), and Nebraska Public Power District, the 
licensee for Cooper Nuclear Station (Cooper). The 
petitions dated June 26 and July 3, 2011, are publicly 
available in the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and 
Management System (ADAMS) under Accession Nos. ML11182B029 
and ML11192A285, respectively.
    The petitioner has requested that the NRC take action
to suspend or revoke the NRC licenses granted for the 
operation of nuclear power reactors and issue a notice 
of violation with a proposed civil penalty against the 
collectively named and each singularly named licensee 
in this matter--in the amount of $500,000 for Fort 
Calhoun Station and $1,000,000 for Cooper. Additionally, 
the petitioner requested that the NRC issue confirmatory 
orders to prohibit restart at FCS and to bring Cooper to 
a ``cold shutdown'' mode of operation until such time as: 
(1) The floodwaters subside to an appreciable lower level 
or sea level; 
(2) the licensee upgrades its flood protection 
plan; 
(3) the licensee repairs and enhances its current flood 
protection berms; and 
(4) the licensee upgrades its station blackout procedures 
to meet a challenging extended loss of offsite power due 
to floodwaters and other natural disasters or terrorist attacks.
    As the basis for these requests, the petitioner stated 
that: 
(1) The licensees' installed flood protection measures 
and systems and barriers at FCS and Cooper are not 
sufficient to adequately protect the nuclear reactor from
a full-meltdown scenario like that currently unfolding in 
Japan; and 
(2) the licensees' station blackout procedures are not 
sufficient to meet a challenging extended loss of offsite 
power due to flood waters and other natural disasters or 
terrorist attacks.
    The requests are being treated pursuant to Title 10 
of the Code of Federal Regulations Section 2.206 of the 
Commission's regulations. The requests have been referred 
to the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. 
As provided by Section 2.206, appropriate action will be 
taken on these petitions within a reasonable time. The 
petitioner requested an opportunity to address the Petition 
Review Board (PRB). The PRB held a recorded teleconference 
with the petitioner on August 29, 2011, during which the 
petitioner supplemented and clarified the petitions. The 
results of those discussions were considered in the PRB's 
determination regarding the petitioner's requests. As a 
result, the PRB acknowledged the petitioner's concerns 
regarding flood protection, including station blackout 
procedures, at FCS and Cooper. By letter dated January 13, 
2012 (ADAMS Accession No. ML120030022), the Director of the 
NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation denied the 
petitioner's requests for immediate action. Additionally, 
the PRB noted that: 
(1) Natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding, 
and 
(2) station blackout regulations are undergoing NRC 
review as part of the lessons learned from the Fukushima 
event. The PRB intends to use the results of the Fukushima 
review to inform its final decision on whether to implement 
the requested
actions.
    Copies of the petitions dated June 26 and July 3, 2011, 
are available for inspection at the NRC's Public Document 
Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, Public File 
Area O1F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, 
Maryland 20852. Publicly available documents created or 
received at the NRC are accessible electronically through 
ADAMS in the NRC Library at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. 
Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS 
should contact the NRC's PDR Reference staff by 
telephone at 1-(800) 397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by 
email to PDR.Resource@nrc.gov.

    Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 13th day of January 2012.

    For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Eric J. Leeds,
Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 2012-1370 Filed 1-23-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P