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Yes, it’s true. Excelsior, at the 11.5th hour, sends around an email that they and Xcel will stipulate not to cross-examine each others witnesses. Ja, your point? You think it’s wise to have a demonstration coal gasification project the size of Mesaba, 600MW-1,200MW, with the impacts of Mesaba, deemed too risky to attract private investment without the DOE’s guaranteed loans, to advance this to the PUC without a hearing? At the 11.5th hour before the hearing, I’m trying to get out of my bunny slippers, get the dogs fed and peed and pooped and out the door and there’s suddenly all this stuff to print off, gee, thanks guys. Lucky for me, and lucky for them too, it wasn’t just yours truly objecting, Big Stone II was objecting too. WHEW! The bedfellows in this deal are altogether too strange. Talk about legal whores… but hey, we’re all whores on this planet!
And I swear, in the list of exhibits I want admitted, both Byron Starns and Tom Osteraas said they didn’t know what the Wabash River Final Technical Report is. Oh, PLEEEEEEAZE… remember, that’s the one that exposed all the plant’s water contamination problems, with juicy things like selenium, cyanide and arsenic. From that report:

Elevated levels of selenium, cyanide and arsenic in the waste water have caused the process waste water to be out of permit compliance. Daily maximum values, though not indicated in the table above, were routinely exceeded for selenium and cyanide, and only occasionally for arsenic. The Project participants have been working closely with IDEM on remediation plans tobring the Project waste water in compliance.

Wabash Final Technical Report, p. 6-14. What will wastewater treatment cost? And without a hearing, how will that be addressed? And it turns out that in the history of this site, it’s one of the most downloaded documents! And same goes for mncoalgasplant.com — a recommended hot read on a cold night!

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