Color me pissy — the Public Utilities Commission cannot seem to get it together to send adequate service of a “Notice of Intent to File,” Initial Filing,” and “Notice of Comment Period on Completeness” and “Notice of Extended Comment Period.”

Somehow this particular project came up on my radar, after I’d heard there was a meeting in Northfield recently about “water” and the intense water use of data centers, and in looking it up, I found I’d not received notice, not just “notice,” but NOTICES!

HOW MANY OTHER PROJECTS ARE GOING FORWARD WITH INADEQUATE NOTICE?

Here’s the Service List for a “Notice of Intent to File” filed by the Applicants last October — only FOUR were served, and look what four:

Then the application was filed by the Applicants on January 16, 2025, and only the original four plus these 15 state and federal agency reps:

And then on January 22, 2025, the PUC filed its Notice of Comment Period on Application Completeness, which was served to:

And then, the document I was served with, the Notice of Initial Filing, was dated January 21, 2025, and filed January 31, 2025. This had a general service list!

Oh! That was odd, so I looked at the docket, and when I looked at the docket, I found the Notice of Comment Period, with Initial Comments due February 4 – so essentially FOUR days notice. That Notice of Initial Comment was served on a handful of service lists, including the initial 11 that included PUC, OAH-RUD and Commerce staff, another 14 agencies; 87 Tribal contacts plus Commerce’s “Tribal Government Contacts” person, plus 12 additional Tribal contacts, the Applicants including Matrix, SolarStone, Stantec, and Fredlaw. STILL NO GENERAL SERVICE LIST.

So I fired off a missive to the PUC that there was inadequate notice, it needed to be extended:

And of course I quickly got notice that it would be extended. GOOD! Today was the original deadline, and I’d not received anything, so I sent a missive asking whether it had not been extended or whether it had been extended and I didn’t get service. I was told “It was filed yesterday, and served to the official service list. Attached is a copy.” I went to the docket, and found a February 3 Notice of Extension:

OK…

Oh, right… here’s the service list:

GOOD GRIEF! Only those 12 again. When I fired off an email asking “so why wasn’t I served with this notice?” Here’s the response: “Apologies, I think there was a misunderstanding. Your 1/31 e-mail asked to be added to the project list, which is a separate list from the Official Service List. I have requested and you have now been added to the Official Service List as well.”

I’ve had a chat with one of the Applicants attorneys, letting them know about this issue, which he thought was odd, and I made it clear I have no issues with the project whatsoever. And I’m waiting on a call back from Bret Eknes at the PUC.

Meanwhile…

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