Legalectric

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Ken relaxing at Lock & Dam #3 with the Priarie Island nuclear plant in the background.

Let me see if I understand this… Prairie Island has diesel generators that they fought like hell about 10 years ago to get classified as “pollution control equipment” so that they’d be exempt from utility personal property tax. These engines, after all, kick in to keep the cooling system going when there’s a power outage and prevent nuclear meltdown so they must be pollution control equipment, eh? (Imagine the mind that thought up that argument, and the yahoos that bought it!) Anyway, these pollution control engines spew crap into the air like any diesel, including Nitorgen Oxide (no, not Nitrous Oxide, it’s not a laughing matter). So now they’re at the Pollution Control agency because they’re in violation of their Air Quality Permit and want to avoid New Source Review. Uh-huh… right… and so what do they propose? Heaven forbid they would have to abide by their permit — nope, no sir, what’s proposed is to raise the emissions limits and decrease the fuel they burn (therefore decreasing emissions, duh). Compliance isn’t contemplated.
Primary documents:

publicnotice.pdf

draftairemissionpermit.pdf

technicaldoc.pdf

It seems to me that this is unreasonable, given that it’s pollution control equipment, after all. Now supposedly biodiesel isn’t as NOx-ious as regular diesel, so why aren’t they required to burn biodiesel? They could keep it warm in the winter by nestling it in with the casks? And as a former truckdriver, cutting the fuel usage limit from 83,955 to 70,238 gallons/month is bizarre. What exactly are they doing out there? In a truck, it’s about 780 gallons from here to California, multiple drops in LA and produce pickups, and back home with multiple drops. So every month, they’re burning the equivalent of 100 trips to CA and back? How often are they using these generators and what for? If the plant has such a laudable capacity factor, why are they running the diesels at all? Methinks I’d better ask Michael Wadley about this, now that he’s off the Mesaba Project and back to boring old nuclear, he could use a little excitement!

And here I thought it was an emissions increase for the garbage burner across the highway… silly me… but look at this blurb in the paper, it’s called the “steam plant.” HUH?!?!?!

Xcel proposing changes to limits

The Republican Eagle

Published Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency will open a public comment period on Wednesday for an Xcel Energy air emission permit proposal at the companyâ??s Red Wing steam plant.

The major amendment in reissuance of the permit is to increase the emission limit for nitrogen oxides. The public comment period runs from Nov. 15 to Dec. 14. Contact MPCAâ??s Trevor Shearen at (651-) 296-8638 for more information.

Here’s the rough list of Exhibits for the Excelsior Mesaba coal gasification project that need to get on the record — it’s not complete, and there are some to be deleted because I can’t find some exhibits that should be in these boxes somewhere, i.e., the Harvard report — which one is in and which ones need to be added? Are all the G519 Miso studies in there?? And I still have to scan in some of the documents, the ones below without links, zzzzzzzzzzzz, this is SO tedious…

OK, the list:

Xcel IRP E-002/RP-04-1752 Order Clarifying…for Baseload Proposals

MISO Queue as of 11/10/06

MISO STUDIES & MAPP NM-SPG PRESENTATIONS

G477 Interconnection Feasibility Study March 10 2005 (p. 9 â?? Deliverability = 90MW)

G477 System Impact Study Rev July 6 2006

G519 System Impact Study 2nd Revision June 6 2006
G519 Short Circuit Study July 27 2006

G519 System Impact Study 1st Revision May 8 2006

G519 Initial2post â?? Branch Violations
mcgp-ex-g519-initial2post-branch-violations.pdf
Excelsior Sherner Presentation to NM-SPG 03-30-04
mcgp-ex-excelsior-sherner-presentation-nm-spg-03-30-04.pdf
Excelsior Sherner Presentation to NM-SPG 10-26-04
mcgp-ex-excelsior-sherner-presentation-nm-spg-10-26-04.pdf
Excelsior Sherner Presentation to NM-SPG 05-05-05
mcgp-ex-excelsior-sherner-presentation-nm-spg-05-05-05.ppt
Excelsior Sherner Presentation to NM-SPG 08-16-06
mcgp-ex-excelsior-sherner-presentation-nm-spg-08-16-06.ppt

MISC. ARTICLES

Iron Range Board gives subsidy for new power plant â?? Business Journal, December 12, 2001

Mesaba Energy Project: Powerful Stuff
Energy Park developer pitches Hoyt Lakes power plant
Excelsior Energy back to start up Mesaba project

Wabash River Coal Gasification Repowering Project – Final Technical Report
Treatment of Coal Gasification Wastewater â?? ORNL
Labovitz Reports from UMD:

The Economic Impact of Constructing and Operating an Integrated Gasification Combined-Cycle Power Generation Facility on Itasca County (for IEDC) April 2006
The Economic Impact of Constructing and Operating an Integrated Gasification Combined-Cycle Power Generation Facility on the Iron Range, Update 2006
The Economic Impact of Constructing and Operating an Integrated Gasification Combined-Cycle Power Generation Facility on the Iron Range, September 2005
DOE Notice of Financial Award and Agreement â?? dated May 23, 2006

Harvard 3 Party Covenant reports (not already entered):

Financing IGCC â?? 3 Party Covenant

Deploying IGCC in This Decade with 3 Party Covenant Financing â?? Volume 1, July 2004
Deploying IGCC in This Decade with 3 Party Covenant Financing â?? Volume 2, May 2005 Revision

IRR Exhibits â?? stipulated by Guunar B. Johnson, Asst. A.G. for IRR:

IRR Letter to Chris Clark, Xcel Energy â?? January 26, 2006
mcgp-ex-irr-letter-to-clark-january-26-2006.pdf
IRR Letter to Chris Clark, Xcel Energy — March 22, 2006
mcgp-ex-irr-letter-to-clark-march-22-2006.pdf
Public Infrastructure Improvement Study â?? January 2006
mcgp-ex-irr-seh-public-infrastructure-improvement-study-january-2006-selected.pdf
Agenda from June 8-10, 2005 DOE site visit with scope of work, maps, list of attendees , and pictures
mcgp-ex-irr-doe-site-visit-june-8-10-agendaparticipantpotosselected.pdf
Excelsior Energy $8,000,000 Convertible Debenture Agreement

Minnesota Power Exhibits â?? stipulated by David Moeller, Minnesota Power
American Transmission Company, Minnesota Power and Wisconsin Public Service Corp.
Arrowhead to Weston 345kV Transmission Line, Cost Estimate Audit Report, Revision 1
May 23, 2003
R.W. Beck Final Report, Independent Cost Review of the Arrowhead-Weston Project, #RPA-PSD-160, July 2003

The record from the Public Hearing in St. Paul, Taconite and Hoyt Lakes must be fully incorporated into the record and citable in briefs. And then there’s the matter of that Fluor Attachment 1 – that’s got to be made public!

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!

I’m still utterly bummed out about Hatch, and the session is looming. But a lot of folks I know will now grace those halls, and it is going to be different, kick ass instead of an ass-kicking, though I’ll try to find some reason to harrass Steve Sviggum before he resigns (wonder who he’s been grooming down there). Here’s one of the biggest losers:

Some of the winners:

I’m thrilled Tom Anzelc got in for House 3A. He was in the middle of Prairie Island I, and at the Progressive DFL Caucus a while back we went toe to toe in a delightfully heated exchange, until he figured out I know the score on that 1994 bill, well, I had to hit him over the head with that. I trust he’ll do well in the SOB because he has the backbone to stand up for regular people.

Further south, in Chisago, Jeremy Kalin beat Pete Nelson in House 17B. Jeremy is a progressive community activist who was part of Concerned River Valley Citizens on the Chisago Transmission Line, and he’s probably the first potter in the legislature!

David Bly won by 57 votes, and from the inbox, “SERIOUSLY!!! Bly won!” and “How did that happen?” and “I didn’t see that one coming…” And Doug Jones’ reaction would be choice! Ray lost a LOT of votes in Northfield, and Bly didn’t lose as many (but didn’t do as well as Peterson), and a strange thing happened in Northfield W-2 P-2. Here’s Bly and Edwards in 2004:

Here at home, Sandy Wollschlager took 28A, an open seat vacated by Republican Jerry Dempsey. I got several mailboxes full of HRCC Independent Expenditure flyesr, like the flip-flop flyer, another mispreresenting her service on the School Board, and Iocco has the nerve to claim SHE was running a negative campaign — show me the evidence Gary, because the floor of my porch is littered with HRCC crap and nothing like that from the DFL! Here she is election night, on the phone with the Republican… errr… Beagle, yeah, that’s it… learning that Gary Iocco had conceded (and not all that long after we’d been confident enough for the first toast to the winner and the first bottle of champagne blew open!).

Further south in House 31B, Ken Tschumper,a LeCrescent dairy farmer, gave Greg Davids a long overdue Tschumping! Here he is with his father and his favorite cow:

Here’s another winner that night, Jim Carlson of SD 38, who ran hard and benefitted from Andrew Borene’s crash and burn in SD41 and withdrew in disgrace (and the DFL sends out sample ballots with Borene’s name? Whatever were they thinking?) because Jim inherited Borene’s campaign worker and Senate support. Not long ago, he’d invited me to speak at a powerlunchbunch in St. Paul about energy issues and of course the Red Wing background checks, where Pat hollered “Senator Carlson!” and Jim was oblivious — get used to it SENATOR CARLSON!

Lots of wins, a change in direction is assured.. but… Hatch’s loss is going to hurt a long time. Kenya is still whining, and Krie is on the lookout for Republican Whores!

From the City of Red Wing in its November Newsletter:

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The City has announced that it has released the background information gathered on the 2005 Council appointment candidates after the Office of the Attorney General deemed it public information based on the City’s lack of authority to collect such information. Note that in the time that this has been an issue, they didn’t announce that people had complained, they didn’t announce that one (moi) had filed a formal complaint, they didn’t announce the Dakota Co. Attorney opinion that a crime had not been committed, and did not announce that the Attorney General had determined that the City’s request for authorization and that therefore the City’s completion of background checks was unauthorized and inappropriate and smacked of prohibited intent of taking action as a result of information received, BUT the City does announce that it has released the information it gathered to the newspaper — seems a feeble attempt to cover up their improprieties and make it look like the paper is the bad guy when it’s the City that’s the bad actor.

Passive voice, circular and backwards thinking… drives me crazy. Distract, divert… that’s what they tried to do here: 071406-background-checks.doc Get a clue, it doesn’t work. The City is the party with the problem here. And here’s what they are saying they’re doing:

The City Council will evaluate the findings from the Dakota County Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office and consider their impacts on its practice of requesting consent to perform candidate background checks prior to the 2008 election.

Really. That’s it. It’s been three months and one election since I filed a formal complaint, and it’s been a month since the A.G.’s Opinion, and there’s been no statement that the “practice” will cease. They “will” evaluate, future tense? It hasn’t happened yet? I would think that something that the Council hasn’t authorized would be pretty damn easy to publicly and loudly discontinue — yet nothing.

Anyway, here’s what’s new… the City sent this announcement to all residents, to all addresses and P.O. Boxes in the City, and it’s a one sided slanted story they present. Their view is disproportionately focused on the Dakota Co. opinion, which “exonerates” the City, but remember, the Dakota Co. opinion only addresses whether there was criminal activity, not whether there is an actionable civil intrusion on candidates’ rights. It does not recount the strong language with which the City was told by the A.G.’s Office that background checks of candidates for elected office were not authorized, no way, no how! There does not seem to be any consideration for those people who were the subjects of background checks, and who did not anticipate this result.

When I learned of the A.G.’s Opinion and reviewed it, and recognized that it meant the information would be released to the paper, I expressed my concern about how it would be used. As an attorney dealing with confidential information of many sorts, and having been the subject of an intense background check to be admitted to the Minnesota Bar, I’m concerned about the positions those folks may be in. I hoped the information could be used to very generally expose the types of intrusive checks that were done by the City, and to use the types of information gathered and potential impacts to drive home the severity of this constitutional violation and intrusion on the city’s part. I expressly stated my concern about damage that could be done to those 2005 appointment candidates because it was an unexpected twist in this mess and it’s important to state it. Information can be misconstrued, peoples lives and circumstances change — it’s just not a good idea to walk the public through others’ lives. And it disturbs me that the City has presented it as they have, as if it is the paper holding the rope on the guillotine, when it was the City’s unauthorized acts that raised this issue. At this point, we have to trust the journalistic ethics of those with the information. I’ve been thinking about this for about a month now, have expressed my concern directly, and despite the “Wente the Hatch(et)” mistep (to put it mildly), I do trust that this will be handled responsibly (deep breathe here, holding breath…).

A disturbing aside — I raised this topic at the District 28 (Goodhue/Wabash Counties) Green Party meeting today, and there seems to be little appreciation of the Consitiutional issue this presents. It’s not just the City Council that has to “read your Constitution!” It’s so fundamental that I’m mentally sputtering in shock!

Primary documents:

A.G. Opinion – No authorization for background checks
ag-opinion-oct-6-2006.pdf

Dakota County Opinion – No crime was committed
(does not address whether there were civil wrongs)
dakota-co-attorney-sept-27-2006.pdf

Here’s the Red Wing City Council minutes when background checks were instituted, and a letter from the Red Wing City Attorney regarding appointment process v. a special election:
red-wing-council-minutes-june-21-27-july-11.pdf
red-wing-city-atty-election-process-advice-june-16-2005.pdf

Here’s the recent November newsletter announcement in pdf in case you want to print it out (I’m making it larger but it’s still hard to read):
city-newsletter-nov-10-2006.pdf

Here’s the newsletter announcement and sort-of explanation: