Legalectric

The T. Boone Pickens wind project in Goodhue County, masquerading as a “C-BED” project now has a formal permit issued by the Public Utilities Commission.  It’s LONG, and will take some serious study:

PUC Order – AWA Goodhue Wind Project Permit

Next?  Motion for Reconsideration – probably by ALL parties!

For years and years, I represented mncoalgasplant.com opposing this wretched boondoggle of a pipe-dream of “clean” and “green.”

IGCC – Pipedreams of Green and Clean

The project lingers on, on life-support, and pulling the plug is long overdue.

The good news is that the Duluth News Tribune is finally paying attention, and looking into the financial irregularities.  Duluth News articles are here, and next will be some responses.

It started with an article in Duluth News Tribune, first in a series, the second below:

Published August 21, 2011, 09:40 AM

 

Millions in public money spent, but Iron Range power plant still just a dream

DNT investigation, part 1 of 2: When Excelsior Energy launched its ambitious, clean energy project in 2001, the company touted it as a way to bring much-needed jobs and investment to the Iron Range. But after nearly a decade and receiving more than $40 million in public money, Excelsior has little to show.

By: Peter Passi, Duluth News Tribune

When Excelsior Energy launched its ambitious, clean energy project in 2001, the company touted it as a way to bring much-needed jobs and investment to the Iron Range at a time when local residents were still stinging from the closure of LTV Steel Mining Co. The innovative, state-of-the-art coal gasification plant also would enable the nation to more effectively tap domestic coal reserves with minimal harm to the environment.

But after nearly a decade and receiving more than $40 million in public money, Excelsior has little to show. While significant work has gone into developing site plans and engineering work and garnering permits, the company has yet to move a shovelful of dirt to build its would-be 2,000-megawatt, $2.1 billion power plant.

And despite receiving virtually all of its backing from the public trough, the company’s spending records, including its officers’ paychecks, remain under wraps.

“At the end of the day, this is a project that has not hired one full-time worker on the Iron Range. Only lawyers, lobbyists and professional meeting attenders have gotten jobs,” said Rep. Tom Anzelc, D-Balsam Township, the only Iron Range legislator who has opposed the project. “And it has all been financed by the public.”

Behind the delay

Heading Excelsior are two seasoned energy professionals: Tom Micheletti, a Hibbing native and former Northern States Power executive, and his wife, Julie Jorgensen, former CEO of CogenAmerica and VP of NRG Energy Inc.

Supporting them is another Iron Range legislator, Sen. Tom Bakk, D-Cook, who argues that cleaner ways of turning abundant domestic supplies of coal into electricity are greatly needed.

Bakk blames the development’s delay on Xcel Energy’s refusal to do business with Excelsior, with the established energy company intimating that power from the new plant could be too expensive and could drive up customer rates.

“There was clear legislative intent that Xcel would purchase their power, but Xcel has been unwilling to enter an agreement,” Bakk said. “Without an out-take agreement, the project has not been bankable.”

Excelsior has made repeated efforts to persuade the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to compel Xcel to buy its power, but has so far been unsuccessful.

Micheletti, who serves jointly with his wife as Excelsior Energy’s president and CEO, also said the project has suffered from unfortunate timing and the effects of a recession.

“Hardly anything is being built right now,” said Micheletti. “Load growth has come to a standstill, so there’s not a great deal of need for new facilities right now.”

Regulatory uncertainties facing the power industry have further complicated the plant’s outlook, Micheletti said, though he added that tougher regulation could help the project if it leads to the shutdown of older, dirtier coal-burning power plants or a shift away from nuclear energy.

Yet Micheletti said he’s stopped making predictions as to when Excelsior will build its first plant.

“It bothers me that, given the current economic situation, we’re not where we thought we’d be,” he said. “By now, 3,000 people would be working on the site if things had gone the way we thought.”

Public funding

From the start, Excelsior has relied primarily on public support, according to a 2008 audit by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor. The agency noted that excluding a small sum of private seed money, “the company initially relied mainly on Iron Range Resources loans for many basic costs it needed to operate, such as office space, desks and computers.”

In 2001, Excelsior borrowed $1.5 million from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board. Additional loans have brought that company’s IRRRB debt to $9.5 million

In August 2010, Excelsior was to begin repayment of its IRRRB loans, but the agency extended the timeline to 2017, in light of project delays.

The company also received $10 million in state aid through the Minnesota Public Utility Commission’s Renewable Development Fund, despite objections from environmental groups about spending such funds on a plant designed to run on fossil fuel.

The U.S. Department of Energy contributed another $22 million, intended to cover half of the preliminary design costs.

The only public record of private equity in Excelsior occurred at its inception, when Micheletti and Jorgensen made a combined investment of $60,000.

Shuttered windows

Tracing where all Excelsior’s public money went and how it has been used is not easily accomplished, particularly after state lawmakers voted to restrict public access to Excelsior’s financial statements. Before 2008, reports the company is required to submit to the IRRRB as part of its loan agreement had been publicly available.

But that year, the Minnesota Legislature changed the state law, with a conference committee inserting language into an omnibus tax bill to classify financial disclosures made to the IRRRB.

Bakk, a member of that committee and also of the IRRRB’s board of directors, told the News Tribune he had no recollection of inserting the language and suggested the IRRRB itself may have requested the change.

Sheryl Kochevar, an IRRRB spokeswoman, confirmed that, justifying it to say the agency’s aid recipients should have “privacy protections that are similar to those a business would expect and receive when it is dealing with a bank.”

Kochevar said the IRRRB must approve all its loans and investments in a public meeting. After that, however, she said the agency will not disclose “nonpublic data about the business that it uses to monitor and protect its loan to or investment in the business.”

Bakk defended the IRRRB’s rationale, saying that if the agency required total transparency of the companies it assists, some might shun its aid, causing the Range to miss out on potential economic development opportunities.

But there is nothing stopping Excelsior itself from disclosing what it does with the public money it receives. Micheletti, however, refused to release that information.

“We do not and have never disclosed confidential private financial information, so that subject is off limits,” he told the News Tribune.

Charlotte Neigh, co-chair of Citizens Against the Mesaba Project, a group opposed to the plant, said the Legislature’s secrecy provision came on the heels of a complaint her group made about some of Excelsior’s uses of IRRRB funds that touched off an examination by the Office of the Legislative Auditor.

The auditors found Excelsior had indeed used some IRRRB loan funds for inappropriate purposes, including lobbying. The company subsequently was required to repay $40,161.

Anzelc contends that any entity that has received so much public assistance ought to be more forthright about how it has spent taxpayer money.

“I believe they should tell us exactly what they’ve done with all the public dollars they have secured,” he said.

Limited view

Even when Excelsior’s financial reports to the IRRRB were still public, they sometimes provided scant detail.

A 2004 letter to the IRRRB Board of Directors from Freeberg & Freeberg Certified Public Accountants acknowledged gaps in Excelsior’s reporting.

“Management has elected to omit substantially all of the disclosures and the statements of cash flows and retained earnings required by generally accepted accounting principles,” the report said.

Still, the reports provided a limited view into how the company was spending its funds. As of the end of 2006 — the last year for which financial reports are public — Excelsior had spent $9.6 million on engineering and site development, $8.2 million on permits and regulatory work, $6.9 million on commercial, financial and administrative services and $7.9 million on in-house staff and consulting expenses since the project’s inception.

Some of these expenses were in the form of unpaid bills to be settled at a later date. A significant portion of that debt was owed to the husband-and-wife team at Excelsior’s core.

State funds from the IRRRB and the Renewable Development Fund could not be used to compensate Micheletti and Jorgensen. Even though they could not collect paychecks for the first several years of Excelsior’s existence, Micheletti’s and Jorgensen’s salaries were carried on the company’s books with the understanding that payments would be made when appropriate funds became available.

According to records, in 2001, the two drew a combined $125,000 in deferred pay. In August 2002, the deferred annual salary of each was increased to $250,000, or $500,000 for the pair. In 2003, they each received another $50,000 raise, bringing their combined annual pay to $600,000, where it remained through 2006, at the last time of public disclosure.

The first indication that Excelsior actually cut paychecks for Micheletti and Jorgensen can be found in 2006, when Department of Energy funds became available for the project. As of 2005, Excelsior owed the pair $2.49 million jointly. In 2006, that debt was reduced by $600,000.

Micheletti’s and Jorgensen’s deferred annual salaries totaled $600,000 each of the previous three years. And unless the co-presidents took a cut, Excelsior actually would have had to pay them $1.2 million in 2006 to reduce their total deferred pay by $600,000 in a single year.

How much more pay Micheletti and Jorgensen have received since 2006 has not been publicly disclosed.

Micheletti refused the News Tribune’s request to disclose how much Excelsior has paid its officers, saying, “As I have indicated to you many times before, our company, like all others, does not disclose confidential information, including confidential financial information.”

 

Part II of the Duluth News Tribune series on Excelsior Energy:

Published August 22, 2011, 12:30 AM

Iron Range energy project seeks lifeline in more funding, new fuel source

Despite receiving more than $40 million in federal and state government money, Excelsior Energy risks running out of gas if it cannot attract additional investment from the public or private sector soon.

By: Peter Passi, Duluth News Tribune

* EARLIER: Millions in public money spent, but Iron Range power plant still just a dream

Despite receiving more than $40 million in federal and state government money, Excelsior Energy risks running out of gas if it cannot attract additional investment from the public or private sector soon.

Gone are state funds, including:

# About $9.5 million in loans it received from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, and

# $10 million from the Minnesota Renewable Development Fund.

Soon, Excelsior will burn through the more than $22 million in federal funding the Department of Energy earmarked to help develop its clean coal project on the Iron Range, according to financial records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and analyzed by the News Tribune.

Those records show that as of Sept. 30, 2010, Excelsior had only about $1.9 million in unobligated DOE funds still available. The company had already spent more than 90 percent of the federal funding approved for project development.

And at what was then the company’s expenditure rate — consuming an average of $418,000 in grant funding per quarter in 2010 — Excelsior would exhaust the last of its federal aid before the end of this calendar year.

Tom Micheletti, Excelsior’s co-president and CEO, refused to discuss how much money the company has left or where it will turn next. Yet his confidence remained intact.

“We’ve got staying power to see our way through this,” he said.

Rep. Tom Anzelc, D-Balsam Township, said he expects Excelsior will turn again to the IRRRB for more support. But IRRRB Commissioner Tony Sertich said there have been no discussions about providing aid to Excelsior beyond the loans that it already has received.

“I don’t anticipate any further request from them,” he said. “We’re watching to see what happens next, just like everyone else.”

Refueling

Unable to move ahead with plans to build a $2.1 billion power plant that would run on gasified coal, Excelsior received authorization from the Minnesota Legislature this past session to proceed initially with a plant fueled by natural gas.

Sen. Tom Bakk, D-Cook, supported Excelsior’s request.

“I think that if we allow Excelsior to start as a natural gas plant, it substantially increases the chance that it (the coal plant) will be built,” he said.

Bakk noted that a natural gas-fueled plant would rely on pre-existing rather than relatively untested technology.

“There’s much less risk from an investor standpoint,” he said.

Anzelc was the only Iron Range legislator to oppose the idea of allowing Excelsior to shift gears and build a natural gas plant instead of one running on gasified coal. He sees the change of plans as a last-ditch effort to throw Excelsior a lifeline.

“The majority of the Range delegation and the governor believe that this is the only way to get any of the $9.5 million in IRRRB funds back. You need to have an actual project that has permits and is constructed. You need a real company that makes a profit,” he said.

Nevertheless, as hard as it may be to accept the loss, Anzelc contends that walking away from Excelsior is the responsible thing to do.

At present, natural gas prices are comparatively low, making it a competitive fuel for power generation, said Julie Jorgensen, Excelsior’s co-president and CEO. Still, Excelsior needs to consider the long-term price outlook for both gas and coal, and Micheletti said the company is weighing its options.

“Do we go slow on one and faster with the other or vice-versa?” he asked. “Or do we proceed with both at once?”

Micheletti estimates a couple of 600-megawatt natural gas-powered units could be built for about $900 million. That’s less than half the anticipated cost of Excelsior’s proposed gasified coal plant. Also, permits for natural gas-fired generators are typically easier to obtain than for coal-burning plants.

One roadblock is that Department of Energy money earmarked for “clean coal” technology probably could not be used to help develop a natural gas plant, Micheletti said. Regardless, he said, Excelsior is in a unique position to push a power plant along quickly.

“Right now, we have the only viable new site for an energy plant in the Midwest because of all the work we’ve done,” he said.

But Anzelc said Excelsior still lacks one essential: a customer.

“To my knowledge, no on in the power business is supportive of this project,” he said.

Search for customers

While Micheletti said he could not discuss specifics because of confidentiality concerns, he said Excelsior is in active talks with potential customers. He said the company will push ahead with a project only when markets justify the investment.

“A lot of companies went bankrupt building on spec. We’re not going to build without a customer,” he said.

Pat Mullen, Minnesota Power’s vice president of marketing and public affairs, isn’t surprised that Excelsior is looking at alternatives to its plan for a gasified coal plant.

“Their original project was way too expensive, and it didn’t get any traction,” he said. “We didn’t want it and neither did Xcel.”

Xcel and Minnesota Power objected to the project, warning that it would drive up their customers’ rates.

Excelsior sought to compel Xcel to buy power from its plant through a power purchase agreement, but the Public Utilities Commission refused.

Even the revamped natural gas plant plan could be a tough sell, however.

Minnesota Power spokeswoman Amy Rutledge said her company has been diversifying its energy portfolio to meet a state mandate that 25 percent of its power come from renewable sources by 2025. The company recently signed a deal to purchase another 250 megawatts of power from Manitoba Hydro in 2020. But new fossil fuel energy is not in Minnesota Power’s plans.

“We’ve looked at the energy needs of our customers,” Rutledge said, “and it is clear we have no need for additional power from Excelsior.”

Xcel Energy has plans to retire two coal-burning units at its Black Dog plant in Burnsville, Minn., and replace them with natural gas units. To obtain permits for that project, the company was required to seek alternative proposals to supply 435 megawatts of power by 2016 or 2017.

But the July deadline has come and gone, and Patti Nystuen, an Xcel spokeswoman, said Excelsior did not submit a proposal and Xcel anticipates no need for additional generation.

Minnesota Power’s Mullen described what he considers “a flat market” for power generation,

But he’s not counting Excelsior out.

“You have to give them credit for their tenacity,” Mullen said.

The importance of siting properly — maybe the message is getting through?  Just like a nuclear plant, you can’t be putting generators in the ground without a lot of respectful planning and consideration for neighbors, be they the people living next door or the migratory birds making their way through, or in their foraging, roosting and nesting territory.

Eagles are as much an issue here as with the CapX 2020 Brookings transmission line crossing of the Minnesota River, and will be an issue with any of the proposed crossings for the CapX 2020 transmission line across the Mississippi River, which is North America’s major migratory flight path.  Eagles in the proximity of transmission lines was the reason (arguably, because the real reason was that they couldn’t use the Myrick Road route, but that’s a whole ‘nother post, see www.nocapx2020.info and search for “Myrick”).

When you’re planning utility infrastructure, and permitting it, you’ve got to have concerns for impacts, but when it’s no
longer the “Environmental Quality Board” handling it, and it’s the Dept. of COMMERCE with their COMMERCE charge, humans and eagles don’t have a chance against the corporate promoters of these projects. It’s time to transfer review back to the Environmental Quality Board and develop standards for siting (do you know there are NO standards for
siting wind projects over 25MW? They just do it on a case by case basis, with no scientific basis whatsoever), and eliminate the Dept. of Commerce and their corporate shills from any oversight of utility projects, unless they want to intervene as a party.

Yesterday there were two articles on this, in the STrib and the LA Times:

Bald eagles could thwart Red Wing wind farm

Wind farms multiply, fueling clashes with nearby residents

Here are the full articles so they’ll be around once archived.  First from the STrib:

Bald eagles could thwart Red Wing wind farm

* Article by: JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY , Star Tribune
* Updated: July 25, 2011 – 1:57 AM

In battle against a Red Wing project, citizens turn to a national symbol.

After a fierce, two-year fight against a proposed $179 million wind farm near Red Wing, Minn., local opponents have only one trump card left — the bald eagle.

Just before the government shutdown on July 1, the 12,000-acre project cleared a major hurdle when the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted to move it forward. But in recent months, a citizens group that has opposed the project discovered that the 50 turbines will be built smack in the middle of prime nesting territory for that beloved American symbol of freedom.

Federal wildlife officials say that the developer could face civil or even criminal action under federal laws if a bald eagle or an even more rare golden eagle is felled by one of the massive blades.

“It comes down to whether they want to take on the risk or not,” said Richard Davis, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who has monitored the project for two years. “I do think there is a higher likelihood of a strike in that area than any other wind project I’ve looked at in the state.”

Chuck Burdick, project director for the developer, AWA Goodhue Wind, said the company has been diligent in responding to the concerns raised by both federal and state wildlife officials. It’s done everything possible, he said, to site turbines where they will cause the least harm to flying wildlife, from long-eared bats to loggerhead shrikes to eagles. But all projects entail risks, he said, and the company plans to start construction this fall.

“I don’t know that a wind farm has ever been built that didn’t result in some bird or bat mortality,” he said.

Wind farms vs. wildlife?

The conflict between these two opposing environmental goals — clean energy and protecting wildlife — is occurring increasingly as wind farms sprout across the nation. There is a growing realization that the massive towers with blades that travel hundreds of miles per hour are killing millions of wandering birds and bats.

The concerns are having an effect. In April, a wind development in North Dakota halted when Xcel Energy, which had agreed to buy the electricity, abruptly pulled out of the deal because of risks to two endangered birds — the piping plover and the whooping crane. The developer, EnXco, still doesn’t have a buyer for the electricity.

Just this week, the federal Department of the Interior proposed new voluntary wildlife protection guidelines for wind projects, but they were denounced by environmental and bird-loving organizations as grossly inadequate. At minimum, such rules should be mandatory, the American Bird Conservancy said.

In Minnesota, the drive for wind energy comes in part from a state law that requires utilities to derive 25 percent of their energy from wind by 2020. Now, the pressure to build has been intensified by industry fears that the federal Production Tax Credit, which greatly reduces the costs of the projects, will expire this year.

Wind energy proponents argue that the risks are worth it. After all, they say, mountain-top coal mining and air pollution from fossil fuels are far more destructive to wildlife than wind turbines. But critics say that doesn’t justify the harm, noting that 55 to 94 golden eagles die every year at Altamont Pass in California — one of the oldest and, many say, most poorly designed wind farms in the country.

Dispute over eagle nests

The eagle problem in Goodhue County surfaced only this past winter, thanks largely to the Coalition for Sensible Siting, a citizens group that opposed the wind project from the beginning. Mostly, they don’t want the turbines close to their homes because of concerns about the effect of stray electrical voltage and the annoying strobe-like shadows cast by the moving blades.

But when the company issued the results of a wildlife survey it conducted on the site last summer, opponents realized they might have more leverage. Company biologists said they found three eagles’ nests within a 2-mile radius of the project, but concluded that the birds were not at risk because they didn’t hunt near the turbine sites.

Mary Hartman, a member the citizens group, was skeptical. Only three nests? “This place is loaded,” she said. Members of her group went out and found eight nests.

Ron Peterson, the company biologist, disputed that number. He said that only two additional nests were documented, and that they were there because the eagles were feeding on “improperly disposed” livestock carcasses. If farmers stop leaving carcasses out, he said, the eagles would move on.

Davis, of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said there are at least four or five nests in all, and he criticized the company’s initial survey as “not extremely substantial.”

But at this point, all Davis and state wildlife officials can do is make recommendations on how to best site the turbines to protect the birds. The ultimate decision on the future of the wind farm is up to the PUC. The citizens groups and Goodhue County, which also opposes it, can ask the commission to reconsider its approval, but a major change is unlikely, participants said.

Still, the commissioners’ concern about vulnerable species was evident. The permit will be one of the first in Minnesota to require a bird- and bat-protection plan, which the company must develop with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.

Plan to ‘promote wildlife’

But there is no certainty such a plan will succeed in protecting eagles or other endangered species.

Burdick said the company’s biologists are tracking the flight paths and hunting territories of eagles and other vulnerable species at the site. He said he expects the company will also “promote wildlife in the general area” and work with the state and federal agencies on turbine locations.

“We are doing everything possible to avoid the most sensitive and intensely used areas for wildlife,” Burdick said.

The federal government can step in only after the project is up and running, if something happens to a protected bird, Davis said. The options in that case might range from shutting down problem turbines, for example, to legal action.

If eagles start dying, he said, the federal government is less likely to forgive an operator that knew the risks earlier.

But that’s only if the deaths are discovered.

“If there are 50 birds hit, are they going to tell anyone?” he said. “We hope they would.”

And in the L.A. Times:

Wind farms multiply, fueling clashes with nearby residents

Demand for clean energy has led to a wind turbine building boom. But many living in their shadow decry the electricity generating projects as pesky eyesores.

By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times

July 24, 2011

Reporting from Tehachapi, Calif.—

Donna and Bob Moran moved to the wind-whipped foothills here four years ago looking for solitude and serenity amid the pinyon pines and towering Joshua trees.

But lately their view of the valley is being marred by a growing swarm of whirring wind turbines — many taller than the Statue of Liberty — sweeping ever closer to their home.

“Once, you could see stars like you wouldn’t believe,” Donna Moran said. “Now, with the lights from the turbines, you can’t even see the night sky.”

It’s about to get worse.

Turbines are multiplying at blistering speeds as wind developers, drawn by the area’s powerful gusts, attempt to meet an insatiable demand for clean energy.

Helo Energy plans to scatter 450-foot machines across hundreds of acres in nearby Sand Canyon. A few miles away, near the Old West Ranch enclave, Terra-Gen Power is building the nation’s largest wind farm with hundreds of turbines, if not more. The project, Alta Wind Energy Center, is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from Google Inc. and Citibank.

Federal and local officials hail the Tehachapi Valley, a harsh desert expanse about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, as an alternative energy mecca that will help wean Americans off fossil fuel. Kern County, home to the nation’s largest concentration of wind farms, is looking forward to millions of dollars in much-needed tax revenue and has approved most proposed installations.

But wind projects aren’t only proliferating in the region’s outskirts. Nearly 3,000 turbines, many of them bigger than Ferris wheels, were installed across the country last year.

The growth is being propelled by federal incentives and state clean-energy mandates. In April, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that requires California utilities to get 33% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020. As of the first quarter of 2011, they’re at 17.9%.

But with thousands more wind projects on the drawing board, they’re increasingly generating opposition among local residents. Less than 100 miles from Tehachapi in the Antelope Valley, proposed turbine developments are facing similar resistance. Across the country, Cape Cod, Mass., residents and political heavyweights such as Sen. John Kerry waged war against what could be the country’s first offshore wind farm.

And the issue isn’t just with wind turbines, said Tom Soto, an environmental activist and managing partner of Craton Equity Partners.

“These large projects enter at their own peril without involving the community,” Soto said. “Just because they’re renewables instead of landfills doesn’t mean they’re off the hook.”

Residents of Blythe, Calif., near the border with Arizona, showed up at the recent groundbreaking of Solar Millennium’s massive solar plant there to protest its proximity to sacred Native American sites. Gleaming mirrors will blanket nearly 6,000 acres, helping to generate electricity for Southern California Edison.

In San Diego County, critics have spent the better part of a decade trying to block the Sunrise Powerlink transmission network, which would bring electricity from far-flung solar and wind farms.

Activists there and elsewhere say that the fight is more than a classic case of “not in my backyard” resistance. Large, remote projects aren’t the only solution to the nation’s energy woes, they say.

City-dwellers could produce just as much clean electricity without the transmission hassles, they said, using rooftop solar panels, small wind turbines, fuel cells and other adaptable forms of renewable energy generation.

“We’re going to need to find space to place these projects,” Soto said. “A successful portfolio will be balanced, with some utility-scale projects and some urban projects.”

Tehachapi activist Terry Warsaw said he’s worried his community will soon be surrounded by turbines.

“Alternative energy has lulled us into a sense of complacency,” he said. “The potential is here to take over every ridge and every mountainside if the community isn’t careful.”

Veterinarian Beverly Billingsley has been hosting anti-turbine community meetings in her new Sand Canyon barn, just up the slope from where the cluster of 450-foot machines is slated for construction.

“They are not benign things,” she said. “We’ve seen turbines go berserk.”

The machines get no more sympathy from Mother Mary Augustine, who lives cloistered at the Norbertine Sisters Monastery in a cradle of hills recently eyed for wind development.

“Monstrous insects,” she calls them. “I look at the propellers for a moment and my head gets dizzy.”

It’s not that they dislike alternative energy, residents say. Many employ solar panels and smaller turbines to power their homes.

Lately, though, locals say that farm animals have begun cowering as construction vehicles rumble across lawns and surveyor helicopters roar overhead. There are worries about turbine oil leaking into water wells and turbines obstructing landing maneuvers at the local airport.

“Avian cuisinarts,” said Sand Canyon resident April Biglay. She worries that more turbines could slaughter birds or cause ground vibrations that could decimate native species.

“We are resembling hundreds of towns around the country,” she said.

Last year, an older machine began spinning uncontrollably, forcing authorities to shut down a main freeway for hours. The resulting traffic was an anomaly in a community where most jams are caused by high school football games and meandering sheep.

Fire is also a concern, with turbines’ finicky electrical wiring, long fire department response times and limited roads on which to flee.

And the turbines could topple in an earthquake, since they’re situated in sedentary soil directly on the Garlock fault line, residents say.

Some suggest that removing trees to make way for the machines could lead to erosion and flooding.

They also argue that the projects aren’t helping the local economy. Local residents say pickup trucks driven by construction workers often have out-of-state license plates. Each new project causes nearby property values to plunge as much as 40%, city officials say.

And because companies aren’t required to dismantle the turbines when they stop functioning, many will join the hordes of “mechanical dinosaurs” that already crowd the area, critics say.

Other residents say they’re tired of making sacrifices for electricity that will go to other counties.

“It’s a question of what you’re willing to give up to be green,” said local lawyer Kassandra McQuillen of some recent project plans. “It’s like proposing clear-cutting Griffith Observatory or the cliffs of Malibu.”

Residents say they’ve won some victories. Developer Terra-Gen yanked its 7,000-acre Pahnamid project last month after opponents slammed plans to set up nearly 150 turbines on the Tehachapi crests.

“It is not unusual for projects to fall by the wayside early in the development process,” Terra-Gen said in a statement. “The decision to pull back in an early stage on the Pahnamid project was a result of several important development concerns, including local opposition.”

By the end of the year, the developer said it will have invested $2.2 billion in Kern County, become the county’s third largest taxpayer with $30 million a year and made more progress building its 1,100-megawatt Alta project.

But with so many projects on the plate for the region, Tehachapi city officials are urging Kern County to impose a temporary moratorium on wind projects near homes. And the city that has long been associated with the fields of propellers is now trying to draw tourists by talking up its chili cook-offs, historic downtown and pristine mountains.

“We’ve coexisted with the turbines for a long time,” City Council member Susan Wiggins said. “But we don’t want to look like one big wind park.”

Above, Chuck Burdick with attorney Todd Guerrero arguing at PUC last November.

Today Exceptions to the Report of the Administrative Law Judge were due in the AWA Goodhue docket.

First, the ALJ’s Recommendation:

Recommendation to PUC on AWA Goodhue Wind docket

And now for the Exceptions:

Goodhue Wind Truth – Exceptions

Goodhue County – Exceptions

Belle Creek Township – Exceptions

Coalition for Sensible Siting – Exceptions

Dept of Natural Resources – Exceptions

AWA Goodhue – Exceptions

Whew, leave town and look what happens…

Recommendation to PUC – AWA Goodhue Wind docket

What sticks in my craw is this — if the law were unambiguous we would not be here today in this contested case:

And it’s that paragraph 43 and 44 that is particularly obtuse, because from here it looks as though that MOES Affidavit filed, to which GWT objected and about which GWT filed Subpoena Request, which were DENIED:

MOES Comments – Affidavit of Ingrid Bjorklund

MOES Comments – Affidavit of Deb Pile

Goodhue Wind Truth – Subpoena Requests for Bjorklund and Bull

ALJ Sheehy’s Letter to Overland – Denial of Subpoena Requests

Were it unambiguous, we wouldn’t be in this contested case, and she wouldn’t be going through this elaborate dance to get to “it’s unambiguous.”

If it walks like an ambiguous, if talks like an ambiguous, it’s ambiguous…

Oh, and here’s another bizarre part, claiming that there are state standards in existence for 12 years:

Uh-huh… right…