Legalectric

Well this is interesting… to put it mildly…  Xcel’s Hiawatha Project, transmission through Phillips, is in the news.

A move to “delay its application… until it provides a more thorough analysis of the need an alternatives” and that if line is “needed,” to bury it under 28th Street is deemed “trying to get the council to adopt a position without public hearings or notice?”

Hmmmmmmmmmmm…

Now Xcel claims the need for the Hiawatha Project is based on the “South Minneapolis Load Service Study,” but cannot or will not produce a copy of that study.  They say it is not completed yet… Oh, and so you’re wanting this line for what????

And then I find that there’s also a “South Minneapolis Electric Reliability Project” where they want to run a 345kV line from Hwy. 280 to the new Hiawatha Project substation.

As discussed, but not quite yet formally proposed, Xcel’s Hiawatha Project would have a substation somewhere near 28th & Hiawatha, and the line would go east through Prestigious East Phillips to near the old Honeywell site near 35W.

Don’t forget, there are three meetings coming up, one held by the community, and two others by Xcel:

Community Forum on Xcel’s Hiawatha Project

Sponsored by the Phillips Community Energy Cooperative, the Greenway Coalition, and others
Monday, January 12, 2009
At Plaza Verde
1516 East Lake Street
6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

… and an Open House, another opportunity to dig into this project and find out what’s really going on:

Xcel Energy’s Public Open House on the Hiawatha Project
Thursday, January 15, 2009
At Plaza Verde, 1516 East Lake Street
Noon to 2:00 p.m.
and 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Search this site for “Hiawatha Project” for background information.

Minneapolis council diverts power-line issue

By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune

January 9, 2009

A preemptive effort by several Minneapolis City Council members to state a preferred route for a new Xcel high-voltage power line through south Minneapolis blew up Friday when their colleagues cried foul.

The trio of council members — Gary Schiff, Robert Lilligren and Cam Gordon — wanted the utility to delay its application to the state for the line and two related substations until it provides a more thorough analysis of the need and alternatives.

If no alternative emerged in that analysis, the trio said, the line should be buried beneath E. 28th Street.

But their resolution was shunted to committee after other council members chided them for trying to get the council to adopt a position without public hearings or notice.

“We have a responsibility outside an empty room,” Council Member Lisa Goodman said.

Xcel has said it plans to apply to the state to proceed with the project early this year, start work by late in the year and use the lines in 2010. It plans to present its review of substation sites and transmission line routes to the community this week.

The utility has said that increasing electrical loads in the Midtown area of south Minneapolis are taxing its current lines. It wants to construct an east-west high-voltage line in a corridor between E. 26th and E. 31st Streets, branching from its current line along Hiawatha Avenue.

Opponents charge that Xcel hasn’t done enough to prove the need or that demand can’t be managed by conservation. They express fear about the electromagnetic fields of such a line and some want it buried, which would raise costs considerably.