Legalectric

Substation at southeast end of CFU line

Last week, I filed an “Application for Leave to Present Evidence,” which is the means to get additional evidence considered in an administrative appeal in Iowa. It’s all right there in the rules! Iowa Code 17A.19(7).

First Cedar Falls Utilities files this Motion objecting: Download file
Hmmmmmmmm… Ivan the Terrible’s slipping, he’s not demanding sanctions against me this time!

And then IUB filed this Resistance to my Application for Leave to Present Evidence: Download file

What’s hilarious about this is that they are arguing that the line will carry 33MW, yeah, that’s it, 33MW — a 161kV line. Uh-huh, right. Well, it’s lawyers arguing engineering, but even their 1978 study, which they didn’t enter as evidence for some reason, anticipates a lot more than that! The utility self-reported to MAPP that the capacity is 329MVA, off by a factor of 10. And that 329MW is more on the order of what I’d expect from a low capacity 161kV line.

Here’s the MAPP Form 1 that I got by subpoena, shows the 329MVA: Download file
The CFU line is the second one listed on the chart.

33MW… yeah right… I cannot wait to argue this one in a hearing. There’s nothing on the record to support their statements that it’s 33MW. Not one electrical study, no MAPP reports, nothing whatsoever. And when I dig up the studies, they say something way different. Sure, my clients didn’t have that info during the hearing when they weren’t represented — how would regular people have access to this information? But none of this was entered in the record, the utility has the burden of production and proof and produce nothing, and the goods news is that producing nothing means that there is nothing to support a finding that the line will have a 33MW capacity, there is nothing to support a finding that this line will not harm the public.

Yes, we are having fun now! And we have not yet begun to fight!