Legalectric

For those of you who haven’t bookmarked Jonathan Larson’s site, Elegant Technology, here’s another reminder to do it now. Today, the inbasket had another choice piece that he’d found and forwarded:

The Five Stages of Collapse

Here’s a snippet to chill your innards:

Stages of Collapse

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out, and access to capital is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down, and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost, as local social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity” (Turnbull, The Mountain People). Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I die tomorrow” (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). There may even be some cannibalism.

Although many people imagine collapse to be a sort of elevator that goes to the sub-basement (our Stage 5) no matter which button you push, no such automatic mechanism can be discerned. Rather, driving us all to Stage 5 will require that a concerted effort be made at each of the intervening stages. That all the players seem poised to make just such an effort may give this collapse the form a classical tragedy – a conscious but inexorable march to perdition – rather than a farce (“Oops! Ah, here we are, Stage 5.” – “So, whom do we eat first?” – “Me! I am delicious!”) Let us sketch out this process.

Sooooo… now that your appetite is whetted, here’s the link again for the whole thing:

The Five Stages of Collapse

Telling it like it is in the world of coal — exposing the truth about coalers’ strong-arming and bullying.  This clear specific editorial should be up for an award!  Here it is in its full glory:

J. TODD FOSTER: Newspaper’s Editorial Position Is Not For Sale
Sunday, Mar 16, 2008
BY J. Todd Foster
Bristol VA Herald Courier

Reasonable people can disagree about Dominion Virginia Power’s proposal to build a coal-fired power plant in Wise County.

Reasonable people.

That would not include a few members of a nine-member Wise County delegation that recently visited the Herald Courier to ambush our three-member editorial board for its muted opposition to the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center.

I SAY MUTED because we realize that society’s energy needs have outpaced production, and – given our love of Southwest Virginia – we are not unfriendly to Big Coal. We also know this proposed $1.8 billion plant could help a depressed area and would be more environmentally friendly than existing ones.

The problem is the cumulative impact this plant would have when combined with other, existing major polluters. And the plant’s promise to harness new technology for capturing carbon dioxide seems to be more of a pipe dream.

Our past conditional support of this plant changed to opposition late last year when it became clear that the Dominion project could not possibly live up to its press releases.

And so our opinion page editor, Andrea Hopkins, writing on behalf of our editorial board – whose other members are yours truly and Publisher Carl Esposito – has written thoughtful, nuanced editorials against the project.

WE’VE GOTTEN much praise and much condemnation. It comes with the territory.

One legislator even noted that our newspaper was founded more than a century ago by a coal magnate, the implication being that we’re disloyal ingrates. Never mind that knowledge evolves: For example, we now know Earth is not flat and that slavery was barbaric.

Some members of the visiting Wise County delegation (one called us back to apologize for the shameful behavior of some of the others) went way too far in their condemnation, however.

Mark Wooten, chief engineer of A&G Coal Co., noted that his company may have to rethink spending future advertising dollars with our newspaper because of our editorial opposition to the Dominion plant. And he chided us for not printing a story (we were never told about) on his company building a playground in a show of altruism.

WOOTEN NEVER mentioned the real nature of his angst with us – the fact that in 2004, we broke the story of Jeremy Davidson. A&G ultimately paid the toddler’s family $3 million after a boulder from one of A&G’s strip mines rolled down a hillside and killed the little fellow while he slept in his bed.

Regardless, Esposito quickly reminded Wooten that our editorial position is not for sale.

Next came Ronald C. Flanary, executive director of the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission. He defamed Hopkins with a totally baseless allegation that she plagiarized some of her editorials. He was lashing out at us for disclosing that an opinion column penned by his pal, state Sen. Phil Puckett, was actually written and published by others – the real definition of plagiarism.

Esposito, who as publisher runs the entire enterprise known as the Herald Courier, informed Flanary that his allegation was “heinous” and pressed him for proof.

IT’S BEEN a month, and we’re still waiting.

The fact is, there is no proof and never will be. Even so, Flanary repeated the falsity in a Feb. 21 letter to “Mr. Carl Esposito, Editor” and carbon-copied Hopkins and me, although he changed my name to Todd Miller, which might explain why I never got it.

His letter stated in part that some of our editorials were “particularly stinging and do not reflect, in our opinion, that the
newspaper editorial staff has fully apprised itself of all sides of the issue(s) before rendering an opinion.”

Perhaps Flanary is right. It is true that our editorial board has not given equal time – to the opponents of the Wise County plant. (Our three meetings on this matter have included two with Dominion Power and one with Flanary’s delegation from Wise County.)

BUT UNLIKE Flanary, who doesn’t even bother to double-check the titles and names of the very people he’s condemning (even though they’re printed in the newspaper every day), Hopkins does her homework.

You don’t have to take my word for it.

“The writer’s strong opinion is always supported by strong evidence,” wrote the journalism judges who just awarded Hopkins our company’s highest honor for commentary.

Hopkins is the 2007 commentary winner of the D. Tennant Bryan Award, named for the founder of our parent Media General Inc.

HER THREE columns were selected from among entries by 22 newspapers throughout the Southeast.

The Bryan Award judges – three independent journalism experts from outside the company – noted that Hopkins’ reliance on evidence “has the effect of exposing the reader to information he or she may otherwise not encounter. The writer consistently acknowledges others’ opinions but provides a clear point of view written in plain language.”

Hopkins’ award is no fluke: Last night in Roanoke, she picked up two first-place awards, for editorial and column writing, from the Virginia Press Association. They’ll go on a bookshelf next to the same two awards she won last year, and alongside the award from the Tennessee Press Association for the best 2006 editorial in the state against all competition, including Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga.

Meanwhile, The Roanoke Times has reached the same editorial conclusion about the proposed Dominion plant.

IN AN EDITORIAL reaffirming its position Friday, The Roanoke Times opined: “If Dominion Power is granted approval for this plant, the people in and around Wise County will pay the highest price. Already, residents of that area live in what the Harvard School of Public Health terms the ‘cone of death,’ where they are at three to four times higher risk of death from pollution-related causes.”

Note to Flanary, who I hear has since written a letter of apology to the publisher (I haven’t seen it): Reprinting the paragraph above is not plagiarism because I cited the Roanoke paper twice.

J. Todd Foster – not Miller – is managing editor of the Bristol Herald
Courier and can be reached at jfoster@bristolnews.com or (276)A
654-2513.

The Comments of the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project EIS drove a few stakes into the slimy heart of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project, the IGCC coal gasification proposal from hell. Now that they’re finally public… It’s going to be an interesting week.

US EPA Comment on Mesaba DEIS

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Letter January 31, 2008 and attachments

These agency Comments, and the way they were disappeared, made me wonder what else might be out there, so I fired off Subpoena Requests yesterday:

Cover letter – Subpoena Requests from OAH

Subpoena Request – Department of Commerce

Subpoena Request – Public Utilities Commission

Subpoena Request – Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Subpoena Request – Dept. of Natural Resources

And from there, it’s time to move on to the feds, so I fired off a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the DOE, and soon the Environmental Protection Agency:

FOIA- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

FOIA – Department of Energy – NETL

EPA FOIA sent via email…

Oh, yes, we are having fun…

OOPS, quick, somebody get ahold of Foster Wheeler, PDC Harris Group, Newport Partners, and get a handle on this.

Let me see if I understand… they put up this “biomass” burner as “clean energy” and violated the air permit, so egregiously that the MPCA is “most likely” to fine them, and are saying that the air permit has to be amended (loosened up, duh) because they based the permit on a biomass/fossil fuel combo… in other words, straight biomass is more polluting than biomass and coal, so they have to loosen up the permit or they’ll continue to be in violation. Oh, great. So I’d guess that everyone out there now has enough information to come to the reasonable conclusion that biomass is not “clean energy?”

From the Mesabi Daily News:

Utilities will likely get MPCA fines
Negotiations continue on manufacturer reimbursement

By JIM ROMSAAS
City Editor
Published: Thursday, March 6, 2008 9:59 PM CST

VIRGINIA – The Virginia and Hibbing public utilities will most likely be fined by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for violating the emission permit on its biomass boilers.

The utilities first notified the MPCA in mid-2007 that malfunctioning equipment was causing them to operate beyond the parameters of their air operating permits. Since then they have been working on a solution, including possible fines.

“The MPCA and the public utilities are close to agreeing to potential fines and a process to modify the air-operating permit in order to be in compliance in the future,’’ according to a joint news release issued Friday by both utilities.
Virginia Mayor Steve Peterson did not want to comment at this time because did not have enough information. He also said he has been out of town and not able to talk to Terry Leoni, general manager for the Virginia utility.

MPCA spokesperson Anne Moore confirmed the negotiations but could not comment on the timeframe or what fines might be forthcoming.

The boiler manufacturer will likely reimburse the utilities for the fine, according to the release.

“Our equipment manufacturers, Foster Wheeler and others, have provided us with technical and monetary support to correct these issues and we are working with Foster Wheeler through a settlement agreement to reimburse the utilities,’’ said Leoni.

The Laurentian Energy Authority, a public authority of the utilities, operates the biomass facilities cities under a 20-year power purchase agreement with Xcel Energy.

“As our new renewable energy biomass plants started up after construction, we experienced several equipment malfunctions in Hibbing and Virginia,’’ said Leoni. “This is common in new plant construction. As our technicians attempted to adjust the operations of the biomass boilers, we exceeded the permitted operating parameters.

In addition, “the MPCA has encouraged us to pursue an air permit amendment,’’ Leoni said in the release. “The original data used to prepare the permit compared our equipment to other dissimilar biomass boilers, which were co-fired with fossil fuels. We uncovered this error, and will now suggest to the MPCA that a modified permit use date from boilers like ours which utilize only biomass as the fuel source.’’

“We are confident that the changes our equipment manufacturer has made along with the permit modifications we are seeking will enable our public utilities to operate within permit parameters going forward,’’ said Jim Kochevar, general manager in Hibbing. “We also believe LEA has offset any excess emissions by the investments in our 1,700 acres of closed loop hybrid poplar tree plantations, which are good for the environment.’’

The Virginia and Hibbing public utilities formed LEA and invested more than $87 million in new biomass renewable electric power facilities in both communities, a new combined renewable fuel handling yard, and almost 1,700 acres of hybrid poplar tree plantations.

LEA now sells 35 megawatts of clean, renewable electric power to Xcel Energy, providing many new jobs in the logging, trucking, and fuel handling industries, along with preserving 70 jobs at the public utilities, the release states. LEA’s renewable energy production is helping Xcel meet Minnesota’s renewable energy mandates.

“This capital investment insured the survival of the two public utilities by creating a new customer, updating our plants, and continuing to produce energy for our customers in the cities of Hibbing and Virginia, said Kochevar.

o

Jim Romsaas can be reached at jim.romsaas@mx3.com. To read this story and comment on it online go to www.virginiamn.com.

This is just to good to believe. Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project is not faring well under the eye of federal agencies, hard to believe, but there it is, in black and white as found in their DEIS Comments. And what’s also too good to believe is that we’ve caught the DOE and Minnesota’s Green Chameleon Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s agency hiding important documents from the public.

First, once more with feeling, the US Army Corps of Engineers:

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Letter January 31, 2008 and attachments

Now, let’s move on to the Comment of the Environmental Protection Agency. Can this be? They’re gettin’ DOWN! Like WOW!

US EPA Comment on Mesaba DEIS

Here’s the poop in short:

Based on the information provided in the DEIS, EPA has assigned a rating of “EO-2.” The “EO” indicates that we have environmental objections to the proposed project. The “2” indicates that additional information needs to be provided to support the impact analysis documented in the DEIS.

The EPA gives it a thumbs down. There are a number of issues, but in tandem with the USACE, there’s a “project purpose” problem identified and the alternatives scenario is flat out rejected:

The selection of alternatives is etermined in part by the project’s purpose…

This project has four stated purposes, which are to : 1) demonstrate the commercial viability of IGCC technology on a utility-scale application, 2) help satisfy Minnesota’s baseload power needs, 3) implement Mnnesota’s energy poloikcies, 4) and utilize state and federal incentives under the Innovative Energy Project initiative. These four stated purposes are actually a combination of two project purposes and a set of modifiers that specify the applicant’s desired conditions and benefits for the project. The demonstration of the commercial viability of IGCC technology on a utility-scale application (1) is one project purpose that can be accomplished anywhere in the United States, not just in Minnesota. The need to provide additional baseload power in Minnesota (2) is another project purpose, which can be accomplished using a number of different technologies, fuels, and locations within the State. It does not require the use of IGCC technology. The purpose to implement Minnesota’s energy policies (3) is actually a desired benefit from the second project purpose. This benefit cannot be considered as a project purpose because it isn’t associated with an actual project. Lastly, the purpose to utilize staet and federal incentives (4) is a desired condition by the applicant that cannot be considered a project purpose. The economic savings and development benefits associated with these incentives do not define an actual project either.

… therefore, we would, in reviewing the CWA Section 404 permit, reject the project purposes as stated by the applicant and the resulting alternatives analysis up on which it is based.

This Comment was withheld by the DOE and Minnesota’s Department of Commerce. Can you believe???

Just for the record, “purpose” jumped out at me too, and here’s what I said in the MCGP DEIS Comment January 11 2008:

6) The DEIS, in Section 1.4, p. 1-6 to 1-9, improperly shifts the purpose of the project, from that of public need, as framed in the DoC scoping document, to one focusing on project proposer need. EIS must address the public need for the project and eliminate discussion of “project proponent need.”

7) The DEIS, in section 1.4.1.2, provides a narrative regarding the DOE purpose, and it does not include “demonstrate” in line one where the purpose of the DOE’s action is explained. This is a “demonstration” project, mentioned elsewhere, and that is a material term in the purpose of this project.

8) In section 1.4.14 of the DEIS, the State Purpose is addressed. One important omission that must be corrected is the state’s need to provide for public participation opportunities under the Power Plant Siting Act and in the PPA docket.

So now what… how dare they hide documents that are so important… how dare they. The DOE and Minnesota Department of Commerce are in deep, deep shit…