Legalectric

Minnesotans — CLICK HERE TO Find out where to attend your precinct caucus.

It’s caucus day today, and right now what’s humming around in my brain is the need for beefed up regulation of train traffic.  There’s the exploding Bakken oil tankers, due to the increased volativity of the crude and need for degasification, and there’s the delay of Amtrak trains through North Dakota, putting people on BUSSES, because of the increased traffic.  These are examples of how the rail system is NOT working.

Here are a few resolutions I’m putting in:

I’ve got a list of resolutions, growing by the minute:

• Ban use of polyacrylamide for mining processing in Minnesota (used in silica sand mining, also proposed for use at PolyMet).

• In the interest of public safety, Bakken crude oil must be properly tested, characterized, classified, and where appropriate sufficiently degasified prior to loading onto rail or truck tanker cars, or into pipelines, to identify potential hazards and degasified to lessen volativity prior to transport.

• Amtrak trains must be given priority over freight traffic, particularly through North Dakota, where currently trains are significantly delayed (hours), or passengers are put on busses to go around the oil train traffic.

• AMEND – delete garbage from definition of “renewable” energy sources:

216B.1691 RENEWABLE ENERGY OBJECTIVES.
Subdivision 1.Definitions.

(a) Unless otherwise specified in law, “eligible energy technology” means an energy technology that generates electricity from the following renewable energy sources:
(1) solar;
(2) wind;
(3) hydroelectric with a capacity of less than 100 megawatts;
(4) hydrogen, provided that after January 1, 2010, the hydrogen must be generated from the resources listed in this paragraph; or

(5) biomass, which includes, without limitation, landfill gas; an anaerobic digester system; the predominantly organic components of wastewater effluent, sludge, or related by-products from publicly owned treatment works, but not including incineration of wastewater sludge to produce electricity; and an energy recovery facility used to capture the heat value of mixed municipal solid waste or refuse-derived fuel from mixed municipal solid waste as a primary fuel.

• Repeal 216B.1694 INNOVATIVE ENERGY PROJECT.

The Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project was rejected by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and the statute should be repealed.

• Develop publicly available state registry of animal abusers, including those convicted of abuse, neglect and hoarding, identifying names, current address and address at time of conviction of those convicted, dates and charges, resolution, and contact information for probation officer.

Freedom Industries, has filed bankruptcy.  Yes, it’s the same Freedom Industries which contaminated water in the Elk River, in West Virginia, and now all that contamination is drifting downriver to Ohio, making water unusable for how many hundreds of thousands of people, animals and plants for how long?  And it’s not over yet, not by a long shot.

Bankruptcy?  How dare they.  It’s time for them to go to jail.  NOW!

Freedom Industries Files Bankruptcy After Elk River Spill

Freedom Industries files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; lawsuits against company on pause

Freedom Industries Files for Bankruptcy Protection

Some of the gory details in the West Virginia Gazette:

Freedom Industries files for bankruptcy

January 17, 2014

By Kate White

By David Gutman

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Freedom Industries, the company that fouled thousands of West Virginians’ water with a chemical leak last week, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today.

The company’s assets and liabilities are “unknown,” according to the filing.

Under the bankruptcy code, Chapter 11 permits a company to reorganize and continue operating. Chemstream Holdings Inc. is the sole owner of Freedom Industries, according to the filing. Gary Southern, who is identified as Freedom’s president, signs all of the bankruptcy documents.

Mark Freedlander of McGuireWoods LLP in Pittsburgh is representing Southern. Documents in the filing allege that a water line break adjacent to the Barlow Drive facility may have contributed to the ground beneath a storage tank to freeze during frigid temperatures in the days immediately preceding the incident.

“The debtor and investigative authorities have taken note of the hole in the affected storage tank that appears to have come from an object piercing upwards through the base of the affected storage tank. Investigations by multiple agencies are ongoing with full cooperation by the debtor,” bankruptcy documents state.

Freedom owes $3.66 million to its top 20 unsecured creditors, according to bankruptcy documents.

Topping the list at $648,221 is Atlanta-based FloMin Coal Inc. Freedom owes Silverlake Holding LLC of Evansville, Ind., $615,954.

Eastman Chemical, the maker of “Crude MCHM,” the chemical that spilled into the Elk River, is owed $127,474, documents show. Eastman, headquartered in Tennessee, is named, along with Freedom and West Virginia American Water, in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this week.

Freedom also faces about 25 lawsuits filed in Kanawha Circuit Court.

I don’t know much about this, but I’m learning.  What I do know, what I’ve learned, is that it CAN happen here… it has.  That is, we’ve had train derailments here in Red Wing, across the river in Hager City, and down river in Winona.  Where there are trains, there are derailments (I’ve not forgotten about low-bridging that Monticello nuclear rotor in downtown Minneapolis in … 1997?)  So what’s to prevent a Lac Megantic or Casselton, ND explosion from happening here?

Where there are trains there are risks, but are we aware of the risks?  Are there new risks? Are we operating on an outmoded understanding of the risks?

In today’s Washington Post:

Senators call for action on oil train derailments

If a derailment and explosion the magnitude of the one in Casselton, ND were to happen here in Red Wing, what would that mean?  If one the magnitude of Lac Megantic were to happen here, what would that mean?

(imagine a graphic illustration here — I’m working on it)

Where are these trains coming from, and where are they going?  I found this great map, it’s set for Bakken oil, and when you go to this link and there’s a map, look off to the right, and you’ll see destinations.  Click on one of the regions and you’ll see that for the middle of the US, you get Hayti, MO and others.  For the East Coast, Delaware City refinery shows up.  GREAT MAP!

CLICK THIS LINK FOR A GREAT MAP SHOWING WHERE BAKKEN OIL GOES (it looks better than this map below)

Are we prepared for Bakken oil trains running through town?  What about increasing knowledge about explodability of oil tanker cars?  What about the discovery that Bakken oil being shipped is more volatile than regular crude oil?  What are we doing to address these new risks?  Even the federal DOT admits that this is not your father’s crude oil:

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is issuing this safety alert to notify the general public, emergency responders and shippers and carriers that recent derailments and resulting fires indicate that the type of crude oil being transported from the Bakken region may be more flammable than traditional heavy crude oil.

Here’s the full 1_2_14 DOT Rail_Safety_Alert

Here’s another issue with Bakken oil, that of increased corrosion:

N. Dakota fracked oil said to corrode rail tank cars, put workers at risk

Of note in that article is that “Montreal, Maine and Atlantic said last week it was forced to file for bankruptcy because of potential liability in the [Lac Megantic] crash.”  Great.  So they’re subjecting us to these risks, and derailments and explosions can and do happen, and now they’re ducking financial responsibility?  Not acceptable.

Now for photos of wrecks:

This week’s train derailment near Plaster Rock, New Brunswick:

Train carrying oil derails, catches fire in New Brunswick, Canada

And one in Wisconsin last March:

Train carrying sand derails near Hatfield

A photo of the staging area for Bakken oil tankers headed for the Delaware City refinery, just 5 miles north of our home in Port Penn, DE.  This parking lot is 14 tracks deep at its deepest, if you go to google earth, look for Delaware City and on the NW edge of town, you’ll see the refinery, and go to the northwest edge, where the refinery turns into corn fields, and there’s the parking lot. It used to be this large oval, like a huge racetrack, and now there’s this new one:

Some examples of derailments from the Red Wing area.

An article I found says this one below was a westbound train, and that the cars were empty.  Good!  But there are a lot of eastbound full ones coming through these days…

This one is from February, 2012:

Directly across the river in Hager City, WI, another one in 2012, found on the City of Red Wing site:

And another derailment in Hager City triggered an evacuation of the town!

Hager City Train Derailment Update

UPDATE: Freight train derails in Pierce County

Back in 2008, another report of a derailment in Winona, with tankers going off into the Mississippi:

2 trains collide in Winona County; cars fall into river A 1,000-gallon liquid propane tank near the tracks was leaking, and nitrogen was leaking from one of the trains that derailed in the 5:30 a.m. crash near Dresbach, officials say. Two freight trains collided head-on before dawn this morning in extreme southeastern Minnesota, sending some of the derailed cars into the Mississippi River, authorities said. A 1,000-gallon liquid propane tank stationed next to the tracks in Dresbach and used to heat a switching station was leaking, as was liquid nitrogen from one of the trains, said spokesman Dave Belz of Winona County Emergency Management. The nitrogen is not considered a health hazard, Belz said, but the propane leak has prompted officials to evacuate the 15 residents from a nearby veterans home “because of wind shifts.” Two train crew members were taken to a hospital but only as a precaution, said Mike LoVecchio, a spokesman for Calgary-based Canadian Pacific, the railway that operates the two trains. “We are not counting them as injuries.” LoVecchio said 18 or 19 cars derailed. Authorities on the scene said the number was closer to 40. Emergency Management Deputy Director Joyce Tlougan, said, one of the engines is in the river, “not totally submerged, but it is in there.” The north-south tracks run parallel to the river and Interstate Hwy. 90, where traffic continued to flow normally, Belz said. The tracks are about 20 to 30 feet up a slight embankment from the river, he said. At that spot, LoVecchio said, there is a siding (tracks that act as a passing lane). “How these two trains made contact with each other is obviously part of the investigation,” he said. “We will be doing a comprehensive investigation and cooperating fully with the investigating authorities.” La Crescent Fire Chief Bernie Buehler, the incident commander, said one train coming from Portage, Wis., was pulling 100 cars, and the other was coming from La Crescent, Minn., with 15 cars. Belz said this is the first crash of this type “that I’m aware of” in his 30 years in law enforcement in the area. With the arrival of daybreak, Belz said, emergency personnel turned their immediate attention to containing the leaks and retrieving the cars in the river. Dresbach is about 150 miles southeast of the Twin Cities. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

And back to Red Wing, here’s a report of another derailed train from February, 1999.

Well, folks, I’m losing my patience with yahoos’ hatred of solar. I keep hearing rumblings and screeches blasting Minnesota’s 1.5% solar mandate and solar generally.  What’s that about?  A temper tantrum?  ENOUGH!  It’s gotten so bad that I think it’s time for a metaphorical whack upside the head.  It’s clearly not something that can be addressed with a rational discussion and/or more information.

A couple days ago, there was an article in the STrib about Mayflower Church’s solar project, following on the heels of ALJ Eric Lipman’s resource acquisition recommendation finding that solar was the least cost alternative (and related STrib article) for Xcel in this planning round:

ALJ Recommendation 201312-95007-01

I read the STrib story on that Lipman recommendation (see Massive solar plan for Minnesota wins bid over gas), and the comments following it were so bizarre and hateful.  Ugly stuff.  WTF???  People were spewing things that were so patently false that I’d laugh if all that hate weren’t attached.  The hate attached makes it a problem.  The nastiness and flagrant disregard for easily discoverable facts and basic nuts and bolts of administrative process is at such a disturbing level that it shouts “sociopathology!”  With freedom of speech comes responsibility of speech, and I’m tired of the vitriol.  Put a muzzle on it!  It’s like 2 year olds having a temper tantrum when they don’t get their way (and there’s another article about those 2 year olds in the STrib lately… see Violent criminals behave exactly like uncivilized 2 year olds).

Solar isn’t anything new, and it’s getting better and better.  It follows peak, which reduces peak demand, gives us a cushion and reduces need for new generation — it’s just exactly what we need, on every rooftop possible.  DUH, it doesn’t belong on prime ag land, and DUH, we don’t want to go around frying birds or blowing 200 degree air into the neighbor’s homes, but get those panels on our roofs!  NOW!

So anyway, there’s an article Friday about Mayflower’s project.  Here’s the church, and there’s the steeple (people are actually saying they took down the steeple for solar… eh?)

The physical building has changed since the photo way above at the top.  Mayflower built a sanctuary attached to the circa 60s education building and vacated the big ol’ white church, which was renovated and repurposed — it is now the Museum of Russian Art!

I grew up at Mayflower, had to go there ever Sunday until I moved out, and I gleefully participated in both the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. sections of the confirmation classes, hey, what can I say, I love to argue theology/philosophy, though I did choose not to get confirmed.  My parents were both Deacons for a long, long time, and active in various committees, including Benevolence, Social Action, Guild, Women’s Circle, and I know that the church has a long history of contribution locally, nationwide and internationally.

It was a thrill to see Rev. Sarah Campbell in the STrib showing off their solar project.  They’ve had an energy mission, both educational and in fixing up the physical plant/planet, and a solar project fits in well with what they do.  But after the article, I see the comments… What is wrong with people, the vile nastiness spewing out is so weird.  They’re saying things about this church that are so far off base, that show they know nothing about it’s mission or history, and it’s just hateful.  What is it about solar, about this project that scares people so?  What is it about these commenters that they go so far off the deep end in their objections?

Objections and demonstrably false statements range from claims that it’s not a Christian church, that they build this huge solar project but didn’t make updates in their heat and insulation, that the church didn’t put Creekside Commons housing together, that the church built this project when instead they should “FEED THE POOR” and help people in need, that this is an example of the press supporting “radical hippie godless-element churches,” the article is “a masterful reassertion of Carbon Cult dogma,” that Mayflower is trying to tell other people how to live, that in Minneapolis “the loons aren’t always birds, solar panel owners are stealing from the ratepayers, “I think your god is Al Gore not the Lord,” that “liberalism can only be understood as a secularized religion. Abortion, “social justice,” and environmentalism are among its most cherished sacraments,” “espite mounting evidence to the contrary, no rational argument or recitation of facts will ever convince Ms. Campbell that anthropogenic global warming does not exist, or that installing taxpayer-funded solar panels on her church roof does nothing to advance “social justice.”  “Everything they do is a social statement. These folks can’t take a leak without making it into a social statement.”

I just don’t get it.  Someone please enlighten me.  What is this anger about?  It’s nuts, and I need to stop trying to make sense of this.

 ****************************

Minneapolis congregation fosters sun worship of a different sort

Minneapolis UCC church installs solar panels as social statement

• Article by: JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY  , Star Tribune
• Updated: January 3, 2014 – 9:55 AM

Sarah Campbell would like churches everywhere to supplement the cross with a new symbol of hope — solar panels.

That, she said, is exactly what the 750 members of the Mayflower United Church of Christ did last week when they flipped the switch on one of the largest solar arrays in Minneapolis as a brazen and public strike against climate change.

“We don’t have physical or spiritual space for despair anymore,” Campbell, the church’s lead minister, said Thursday. “I am really hopeful that we can turn this thing.”

In fact, it may already be working.

Just days after Mayflower’s 204 Minnesota-made panels were turned on in the icy sunshine, an administrative law judge concluded that solar is a better deal for the state and Xcel Energy than investments in new natural-gas generators. If the decision is upheld by the state Public Utilities Commission, it will open the door to massive solar installations across the state and potentially a sevenfold increase in solar power.

In addition, solar gardens are sprouting all over town. Those jointly owned solar arrays allow electric customers to invest in a project built somewhere off their property and own a share of the output. Their share of the electricity gets credited to their monthly bills. At least three are in the works in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the state.

For the members of the Mayflower Church, which sits at the corner of Diamond Lake Road and 35W and is part of the United Church of Christ, the energy project fit right into its historically liberal mission. It was among the first denominations to accept female and gay clergy. Mayflower considers itself a church of big dreams — symbolized by the giant dream catcher sculpture hanging from the roof of the sanctuary — and it does not dream humbly, said Campbell.

As a delegate to the World Council of Churches, Campbell was among those who persuaded the group to sign a letter to President Obama urging him to say no to the Keystone Pipeline proposed for carrying Canadian oil across the middle of the United States. At its annual synod last year, the United Church of Christ agreed to divest itself of all investments in fossil fuels and to adopt a goal of carbon neutrality.

“Humility is a nice trait. But when you are doing justice, it does not work well,” she said. “And church organizations can be powerful ways to create change.”

Built to be noticed

The congregation wanted the solar panels to get noticed — so it built a steel frame to hold one-fourth of them above the front door of the church. The others are largely hidden on the flat roof of the two-story education building behind the church. Only airplanes can see them, Campbell said.

It took five years of planning and a fundraising campaign to generate the $200,000 needed for the entire energy efficiency project. In addition to the solar panels that march in south-facing rows across the roof and the portico, the church also replaced its boiler, added insulation and put in more energy efficient light switches. In all, it has reduced its carbon footprint by about 60 percent, said Monte Hilleman, the church member who ran the project. By 2030 the church wants to be totally carbon neutral to set an example for halting climate change.

“How are we going to get there if we don’t tackle buildings?” said Hilleman, who is vice president of real estate and development for the St. Paul Port Authority. In the United States, buildings use about half of the nation’s electricity and produce about half of the carbon emissions that drive climate change, he said.

The financial advantages, though secondary, are considerable. Hilleman said thanks to energy credits and rebates from Xcel, it got $300,000 worth of energy investments that, after tax credits and other financial arrangements, will ultimately cost the church just $30,000. Of course, it had help from lawyers and the solar companies that built the array in figuring out how a tax-exempt church could take advantage of tax credits. But after knitting together an array of financing and cross-leasing agreements, they did it, he said.

Others are noticing. Campbell said she often is asked to speak about the project at other churches, and several members of the Mayflower congregation are looking into putting solar onto their own homes.

“And we are seeing growth in our membership of people who want to do more than talk about it,” Campbell said.

Yes, it’s the long awaited North American Electric Reliability Corporations Long-Term Reliability Assessment!  Usually it comes out in October, and this year, December?  Go figure.

2013 NERC Reliability Assessment

In particular, check out the charts showing the most impressive reserve margins (click for larger version) starting on p. 15 of the report (22 of the pdf):

The section on MISO begins on p. 52 of the report.

As my buddy at ATC would say, “Cuddle up with your Kindle!”