Legalectric

So I’m sitting here working and staring out the window, looking up the bluff, and a deer saunters across, about 30 feet above the poop deck outside my office, and then coming down and down the bluff into my back 40 (40″ that is, behind the kitchen and laundry room, 4o” of flat land behind the house before the retaining wall up the bluff).  She liked the day lilies, and over there, there are more than enough to keep a few young deer going.

That’s out the back kitchen window, over the dog kennel, where the deer’s having a little brunch.

There’s deer hunting in Red Wing, this house is in the official “Hunting Zone.”  I could bow hunt off my deck, or open my office window, and the deer are probably glad I’m a veggie… a Sagittarian with a bow is a dangerous thing.

Here’s a flyover that says it all…

Fukushima: ‘much bigger than Chernobyl:’ expert

Although I’d argue that it’s certainly a lot worse than that:
Fukushima is now the radioactive Deepwater Horizon of the Pacific

Noooooo, we know it’s spring, but on Sunday, we’re going to Wisconsin to meet, and likely bring home, our new adopted doggy, a 12 y.o.  GSD named Summer.  She needs a retirement home, and that’s something we’re good at.  What struck me about her is she’s Kenya’s twin, that perky smile, bright eyes (even if they can’t see) and this dear dog has 4 legs that work.

She doesn’t eat cats, and in case you didn’t notice, she’s a big’un, 120 pounds, WOW, that’s bigger than Krie the Big Galoot!  She has some health issues, but nothing we can’t handle, and with her good attitude, she should fit right in with Kady and Little Sadie.

Who can resist a smile like that?

There’s a problem with not having a dog in the fight, and that is that I’ve not been tracking what’s going on in the Hiawatha Project Certificate of Need docket, or more correctly, what’s NOT going on.  OH MY!  Look what I just learned!

THE COMMENT PERIOD ON “NEED” ENDED 3/31/2011!!!

Yup, really, here’s the notice:

PUC’s Notice of Comment Period

That was sent out in early March, setting the deadline for Initial Comments as March 31, 2011, and Reply Comments for April 29, 2011.

This Certificate of Need is going through the “informal process,” something arbitrary set up by the PUC and MOES, with no rules, and oh, it is going weirdly.  Here’s the PUC Order authorizing the “informal process” that was issued in February:

Order of PUC establishing “informal process”

Let me see if I understand this.  The Environmental Report is not done, in fact it’s not yet begun, the Scoping Comments were due yesterday, April 6, 2011.   And the notice for the Scoping of the Environmental Report notes that there will be a public hearing on need, as required by the statute and rules, after the Environmental Report is released.

… but the initial Comment period is closed, the Reply comment period ends April 29, 2011, and all of that will be over before the Environmental Report is done and before the “Public Hearing.”  HUH?  This makes no sense.

Worse, the only party to file comments by the March 31, 2011 deadline was MOES!  There were how many intervenors in the Routing docket, and they raised such a stink about the need for a Certificate of Need proceeding that they rammed through a bill requiring it, and now that it’s begun (and now that their $90k was line-item vetoed by Pawlenty) they are all absent, not a one has bothered to show up and submit a single Comment.  Give me a break!  What does it take to put a comment in?  And not one… and a few have submitted letters saying they won’t be intervening, notably the large funded intervenors:

Letter from Hennepin County, City of Minneapolis and Midtown Greenway Coalition, stating they have no intention of intervening

…sigh… gee, I wonder why they’re not intervening…

Anyway, here’s what MOES has to say, and remember this is the beginning, not nearly the end:

MOES – Comments and Recommendation

So once again, let me see if I understand this.  MOES has submitted Initial Comments recommending that this Certificate of Need be approved, and is basing that on the Application, and to support that Recommendation, using demand data from 2006, and using the Chisago Project record from 2007 as the basis for saying that a determination regarding undergrounding should be made in the routing docket.  Really, that’s what it says, PLEASE read it!

MOES, CAN YOU SPELL “PREMATURE?”

Look what Xcel filed on January 6th, 2011, as a “Supplemental Filing” replacing their “Appendix B, Figure 7, Monthly Demand and Capability” chart (click to enlarge):

Compare that “Net Peak Demand” with the original chart — there’s a LOT more capability than demand… but hey, we knew that:

So can you believe this MOES Recommendation to grant the Certificate of Need?  Where are my waders…

MOES clearly has not taken this chart into account showing a 10-15% decrease in demand.  Plus MOES is not taking into account any Comments because theirs were filed on the first deadline!  They’re taking everything Xcel says in its application and presuming it’s fact!  Even the 55MW need claim based on 2006 data.  HELLO?!?!

A Recommendation should come at the end of the process, not the beginning.  DUH!

Well, here we go… Reply Comments due April 29, 2011.

Duck and cover!

.

Comments for the scope of Environmental Review for Xcel’s Hiawatha Transmission Project through the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis are due TODAY at 4:30 p.m.  These Comments must address the “scope” of issues to be addressed in the Environmental Report – not that you don’t like it (who would?) but raise all the issues, each and every one, each subtle variation and nuance, of the things they need to consider.   Because this is a Certificate of Need docket, they need to include things like “consider system alternative of an upgrade of the distribution system” and “consider system alternative of solar panels on large buildings in area to follow peak” and so forth.  TELL THEM TO INCORPORATE THE HIAWATHA PROJECT ROUTING DOCKET DEIS AND EIS INTO THE ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT. Be painstakingly specific.  Send Scoping Comments by 4:30 p.m. today, be sure to label as “Scoping Comments for Hiawatha Project” and put the docket number on it, “Docket 10-694.”   If you’re so inclined, file them on eDockets at the PUC.

SEND SCOPING COMMENTS TO: bill.storm@state.mn.us

AS “SUBJECT” STATE “HIAWATHA SCOPING COMMENTS – 10-694” SO THEY WON’T GET LOST

Why does this matter?  Because so far they’ve gotten away with claims that this transmission project is “needed” to address a distribution system problem.  The Certificate of Need docket is where we can demonstrate it’s not needed.  This “Environmental Report” is a part of that.  And these “Scoping Comments” are the only public input into an “Environmental Report,” because unlike a Draft Environmental Impact Statement,” there will be no public comments on its adequacy, what’s included, what’s missing, that doesn’t happen with an Environmental Report.”  And that’s a problem.  Someone needs to enter the DEIS and the FEIS from the Hiawatha routing docket (PUC Docket 09-38) into the record as a Scoping Comment and the entire DEIS and FEIS need to be incorporated into the environmental report.

Here’s an important example.  Remember the furor over the “high” magnetic field levels in the Routing Docket, and that the ALJ recommended it be underground?  Well, those levels are not even close to what those lines could produce. Forever, I’ve been saying, commenting, testifying in the routing docket that the magnetic field levels for the Hiawatha Project are a lot higher than they are claiming(click to enlarge) and nobody cared… sigh…  Here’s what they claim:

And sure enough, if you take the conductors specified, the potential levels are a LOT higher than they disclose.  Here’s a chart of calculated magnetic fields for Route Options A, B and C (click to enlarge):

This chart is from a Scoping Comment Affidavit just filed: by Bruce McKay, the same engineer who filed a similar Affidavit in the CapX Brookings remand that got the Applicants to admit to those levels, which acknowledges the accuracy of McKay’s Affidavit and calculations, in Darren Lahr’s testimony in the Fargo-St. Cloud case.  Well DUH!

So to get some accuracy going here, Bruce McKay filed a Scoping Comment with the above chart:

McKay Scoping Comment Affidavit- Hiawatha Project

Again, Scoping Comments are due at 4:30 p.m. today.  Send “Scoping Comments, Hiawatha Project 10-694” to:

bill.storm@state.mn.us