Land use challenge – FPL Glades Power Park
March 17th, 2007
Did Lykes, FPL and Glades County come together to alter rules to allow an Everglades power plant?
By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
Published March 15, 2007Tampa-based Lykes Brothers and Florida’s largest utility cut a deal with Glades County officials to illegally rezone 400,000 acres of Lykes land to allow the utility to build a power plant at the edge of the Everglades, an environmental group charged in a lawsuit filed late Tuesday.
The Lykes land, which covers 90 percent of Glades County, had been zoned for agriculture. The rezoning, quietly approved by Glades officials last year, inserted the letter “P” into line number 1,745 of a 2,100-line table in its land-use ordinance, the suit contends.
That small alteration changed the uses permitted in agricultural areas to include power plants.
“They just slipped it by everybody,” said David Guest of Earthjustice, which filed the suit on behalf of five Glades County landowners.
David Guest, Earthjustice
Glades officials weren’t trying to fool anyone, said Assistant County Administrator Larry Hilton. The change was supposed to help Lykes develop a 3,500-home community called Muse Village in another part of the county, he said, not hide Florida Power & Light’s plans for a new coal-fired plant near Lake Okeechobee.
Lykes vice president Mark Morton said his company asked for the change, but agreed with Hilton that this wasn’t about FPL’s new plant.
“We told the county that they needed to add language to allow utilities on agricultural land” to provide power for Muse Village, he said. “After that, the power company thing came up.”
An FPL spokeswoman declined to comment.
To keep pace with rising electricity demands, FPL has been trying for years to build a power plant somewhere in South Florida. Originally, the utility intended to build it in St. Lucie County, a plan that stirred tremendous controversy.
In November 2005, St. Lucie commissioners said no because of pollution concerns and possible violations of the county’s growth plan.
So, in February 2006, FPL officials began talking to Glades County officials about building a 1,960-megawatt plant there. Last September, the utility announced it would build the plant on about 5,000 acres of Lykes-owned farmland 5 miles northwest of Moore Haven.
That puts it within 70 miles of Everglades National Park and 40 miles north of Big Cypress National Preserve. Utility officials say the $5.7-billion plant will employ a technology called advanced supercritical pulverization, burning coal at extremely high temperatures and using extensive filters to make it far cleaner than a regular coal-fired plant.
But last week the Sierra Club, Florida Wildlife Federation and other environmental groups filed papers with the Public Service Commission to oppose the plant, citing concerns about the impact of pollution on the already imperiled Everglades.
Everglades National Park Superintendent Dan Kimball has also expressed concern about the plant’s smokestacks pumping mercury into the air and water. Mercury contamination is already such a big problem at the park that visitors are warned not to eat fish caught there.
The news that Glades commissioners had approved a land-use change that would clear the way for building a coal-fired power plant in their backyard caught local residents off-guard, said Lynn Kilcoyne, who has lived there 20 years.
“I’m amazed at how sneaky they’ve been in all this,” said Kilcoyne, lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Records obtained by Earthjustice show that Hilton and County Manager Wendell Taylor met on March 29, 2006, with four FPL executives as well as Morton and another executive from Lykes and Glades County Commission Chairman Butch Jones.
No records show what they discussed. But at that point the zoning code said land zoned for agriculture would not be suitable for commercial and industrial development.
On April 6, 2006, county officials sent out a public notice about a proposed land-use change that made no mention of power plants. After two public hearings at which no one mentioned power plants, the commission in May adopted the change by a unanimous vote.
After the vote, George Whidden of Florida Power & Light sent an e-mail to Glades officials thanking them for the “very substantial progress you have made on our endeavor” and stating “it is indeed a pleasure working with such straightforward folks.”
The suit seeks to stop Glades from being able to use the new zoning for the FPL plant. So far, no hearing dates have been scheduled.
Times staff research Caryn Baird contributed to this story.
Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@sptimes.com or at 727-893-8530.
IGCC – speaking of ED… and NRDC
March 17th, 2007
Steve Jenkins, former IGCC promoter toady extraordinaire, has come clean about coal!
IGCC just can’t get it up, it’s not a happenin’ thang… it’s unreliable… this should be common knowledge, but for some reason, some persist in denial. Why would NRDC and ED say “IGCC is good with capture and sequestration” when it’s NOT good, and “capture and storage” is NOT happening?
Wabash River was utter disaster. Pinon Pines never worked. Carbon capture and sequestration isn’t happening. So at what point do they admit that IGCC is a stupid fork to take, a diversion from the real work of generating and using electricity that we can live with? That works FOR us, rather than poison us. From NRDC’s Coal in a Changing Climate:
There is no such thing as “clean coal.†However, as far as the air pollution and global warming effects of coal are concerned, technologies ready for widespread commercial application can dramatically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, mercury, sulfur, and nitrogen oxides from coal conversion. Although the other challenges remain, we must employ these technologies now to prevent evenreater damage from coal use. The race for a better energy future is on.
And here’s ED on IGCC:
What’s wrong with this picture? DUH!!! NRDC’s and ED‘s claims are against evidence!!! Obviously they aren’t reading the record of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project.
One of the more public flops was the Pinon Pine project, which for some reason didn’t turn up in my prior searches. Here’s the link:
And of course there’s the:
And based on a career of IGCC promotion and toadism, Steve Jenkins has filed the most amazing testimony in the Florida “Glades Power Park” docket:
So what’s going on in Florida? It’s dreadful — first off, they want to build a 1,900MW pulverized coal plant, the “Glades Power Park.” Pricetag? $5.7 billion! Holy shit!
OK, so if that isn’t enough, dig the testimony of Richard “The Vermin” Furman:
This guy testifies that IGCC in the midwest costs 5.26 cents per kilowatt hour! Well, not quite, he testifies that a DOE report says that’s the cost. HELLO!! DUH!!! Double it and you’re close!
From Dr. Elion Amit’s Rebuttal Testimony in the Minnesota Excelsior case:
Solar/gas combo announced for Arizona
March 16th, 2007
 
Thanks to Harry for sending this article from Power Engineering that shows yet another utterly sensible option for dispatchable power!!!!! In addition to my fave, the wind/gas combo, now a solar/gas combo has been announced for Arizona:
LS Power to develop solar plant next to gas-fired facility in Arizona
7 March 2007 — LS Power Group has initiated the development of a stand-alone solar power plant near its natural gas-fueled Arlington Valley Energy Facility, a 570 MW combined-cycle plant in Maricopa County, Arizona.
“We have begun serious evaluation of a major thermal solar project on the 3,500-acre parcel we own surrounding the Arlington Valley plant,” said Jason Hochberg, president of LS Power. “This large, flat, very sunny location has tremendous potential to produce clean, renewable energy.”
In addition to the stand-alone project, LS Power is studying the feasibility of building a solar integration project at the same location. Thermal solar units would generate steam for use in the combined-cycle plant, possibly reducing fuel consumption and cutting emissions, including greenhouse gases. The integration project would be among the first ever built for commercial use.
The development project is being undertaken by LSP Polaria, an LS Power subsidiary. When the pending business combination between LS Power and Dynegy closes, the project will be jointly owned by the two companies under the terms of a joint venture arrangement.
Copyright © 2007: PennWell Corporation.
Where can we do CSP and gas?
Jake acquitted of voter fraud!!!!
March 14th, 2007
WOW, I cannot believe… I wonder if he’s going to be reimbursing all the legal fees his 93 employees… er… “independent contractors” and customers incurred to defend themselves against their felony charges for registering as voters??
Former Coates strip club owner acquitted
He was acquitted Wednesday of voter fraud conspiracy and forgery by a Dakota County jury.
By Jim Adams, Star Tribune
The former owner of a strip club in Coates was acquitted Wednesday of voter fraud conspiracy and forgery by a Dakota County jury.
Richard (Jake) Jacobson had argued that he thought his scheme was legal to recruit outsider voters to pack the Coates City Council with supporters who would allow his strip club to reopen.
Jacobson, 36, was acquitted two felony charges for his efforts to persuade 93 of the strip club’s patrons, dancers and others to register to vote in Coates (population 160) by listing their residence as the address for Jake’s Gentleman’s Club. Then they could vote for Jacobson’s supporters in the 2002 council election.
In closing arguments, defense attorney Joe Friedberg told the jury that Jacobson’s plan was based on erroneous legal advice but the club owner thought it was legal because of a legal loophole discovered by his former attorney, Randall Tigue. The loophole wasn’t valid, but Jacobson believed it was, Friedberg said.
Prosecutor Scott Hersey told the jury that it defied common sense to think Jacobson believed Tigue’s advice that he could legally steal the election.
Jacobson has professed innocence. “I don’t think I did anything wrong in the first place,” he said. He said he had received bad advice from Tigue.
Tigue testified Tuesday that he had advised Jacobson on various ways to get his three supporters elected to the council. Jacobson hoped a new majority would rescind the council’s ordinance that rezoned the strip club property as residential. Tigue said he didn’t advise Jacobson about the law against voter fraud conspiracy.
Tigue defended Jacobson through a 10-year legal effort by Coates officials to shut down the strip club. A federal judge ruled in March 2001 that the club violated zoning and licensing ordinances. Jacobson appealed and lost. The club closed in June 2002.
Hersey reminded the jury that some co-defendants testified that Jacobson’s bar bouncer, Brad McBride, told them Jacobson would pay the fines if they got in trouble for voting in Coates. That showed that Jacobson, who had told McBride and other employees to solicit new voters, “knew what they were doing was illegal,” Hersey said.
“He wanted to keep that club going, legal or illegal, it didn’t matter,” the prosecutor said.
The 93 people who filled out voter registration cards were charged with forging them by listing the club address as their residence; most have since pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and paid fines.
Friedberg said Jacobson obviously thought his voting plan was legal when he mailed 89 of the registration cards himself to the Dakota County auditor’s office. He said he dropped the plan after the auditor’s office sent letters to the 89 voters challenging their eligibility.
After being charged in October 2002, Jacobson had pursued appeals to the state Supreme Court, which ruled he could rely on his attorney’s advice as a defense.
Tigue had cited a county attorney’s opinion on another case to Jacobson to justify his plan to import voters into the town that stretches along Hwy. 52.
That opinion, by Philip Prokopowicz, the chief deputy county attorney, involved an election law case in which 13 Minneapolis police officers listed their precinct address as their residence when they registered to vote.
Prokopowicz reviewed two state laws on voter registration but not the fraud and forgery laws Jacobson was accused of violating. Prokopowicz wrote in June 2002 that he found irregularities but no “criminal wrongdoing” by the Minneapolis officers.
Hersey noted the officers didn’t try to rig an election outcome or solicit others to vote a certain way.
“The defense says all they were trying to do was take advantage of a loophole,” Hersey said in court. “He was driving a Mack truck through loophole in a tree, and it didn’t fit but he drove ahead anyway.”
Jacobson said he still owns the vacant, pink building in Coates where his club operated and has considered reopening it since a favorable appeals court ruling in 2004.
Tigue said after Tuesday’s hearing that a federal appeals court decision in 2004 offered the possibility for Jacobson to reopen the Coates club with bikini-clad dancers.
Jim Adams • 612-673-7658 • jadams@startribune.com
©2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
How did I miss this??
March 14th, 2007
There she goes, off in la-la land again… this was in Monday’s Strib:
Bypass the insurers
Mandatory health insurance? I need health care, not insurance.
Take the insurance company out of the middle and we’ll receive a lot more for our dollars. And until then, don’t expect me to pay an insurance company that won’t provide the care I need.
CAROL A. OVERLAND, RED WING, MINN.
DAMN – there’s a MOUSE on my printer… sitting there twitching his whiskers daring me… now he’s… oh this is a problem.
The LTE the STrib wouldn’t print was about that Dogawful article about transmission, attemption to build the case that we need CapX2020 transmission for wind. What a load o’ crap. The article cited a guy from WindLogics, but failed to mention the fact that WindLogics was part of the Wind Integration Study that says we can integrate 5,000-6,000MW of wind within the existing system without massive transmission upgrades. EARTH TO MARS, but hey, if they can say it’s for wind, let’s build billions in transmission infrastructure over the land of 200,000 Minnesotans, they get accellerated rate recovery, we pay for their transmission for coal, they get a bunch of AFDUC dough to build those coal plants and their central station power devastation continues. What a great idea… idiots…