Legalectric

Could this be the last post on this? Sure hope so. But it always takes longer than it should…

Kandiyohi’s Midtown Eco-Crapper, er… Eco-Energy… is going down in flames. It’s a so-called biomass plant, and it would spew about a million pounds of pollution ANNUALLY into the atmosphere, PLUS lots of CO2 (how much?) to add to global warming and toxic fallout in the neighborhood and beyond. Great idea… just great…

Well, maybe, just maybe, it won’t be happening. The City of Minneapolis has said that Kandiyohi has not met the requirements for its option on the property, the site for the Eco-Crapper, and the big problem is that they don’t have a Power Purchase Agreement. So says the city:

Interoffice Memorandum
to: Council Members and Mayor Rybak
from: Greg Goeke
subject: Midtown Eco Energy – Option on Purchase Agreement
date: 3/27/2008
cc: Steve Kotke, Pat Born, Shelley Roe

As many of you know, the City has entered into a conditioned Purchase Agreement with Midtown Eco Energy LLC (the developer) for the sale of 2850 20th Ave South. The sale was predicated on the site being developed for a biomass combined heat and power generation facility.

As required by the purchase agreement, the developer would need to meet certain requirements (at specified dates) in order for the sale process to continue towards closing. The developer has submitted documents and a required payment in with the intent of “exercising their option” to purchase the property. The purchase agreement required that the developer initiate this process and meet the “Option Requirements” of the purchase agreement by March 30, 2008. A staff team comprised of Steve Kotke, Pat Born and Shelley Roe has reviewed the documentation submitted by Midtown Eco Energy, LLC.

The Option Requirements are: (as written in the purchase agreement)

4.2.1 pay to Seller (the City) the entire Option Price ($50,000) …….
The Developer has met this requirement.

4.2.2 demonstrate the Buyer (Midtown Eco Energy, LLC) has submitted all necessary application materials to the State of Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency to request issuance of an air quality permit as necessary to build and operate the Project.
The Developer has met this requirement.

4.2.3 demonstrate that Buyer has submitted all necessary application materials to the City of Minneapolis for a conditional use permit to build and operate the Project.
The Developer has met this requirement.

4.2.4 demonstrate that Buyer has financing commitments for debt and equity sufficient to undertake the Project, which commitments may be reasonably conditioned, as well as a commitment to enter in a power purchase agreement subject also to reasonable conditions.
The Developer has not met this requirement.

4.2.5 provide Seller with a copy of any Title Evidence and Buyer’s Objections ……
The Developer has met this requirement.

It is the staff’s joint professional position that the developer has not sufficiently demonstrated a commitment from a utility provider to enter into a power purchase agreement. The Developer submitted a letter from Xcel Energy dated March 17, 2008 which indicated that Xcel was in negotiations with the developer, but the letter did not indicate a tentative agreement, an agreement in principle or any commitment to enter into an agreement. Additionally, staff was concerned that the letter was written from a mid-level staff person and that such person may not be a person with any authority to speak for Xcel.

A certified letter has been sent to the developer addressing the City’s staff position on the issue. We have offered to meet with the developer and others to address this issue. The developer is entitled to provide additional information any time prior to the March 30, 2008 deadline in order to meet the Option Requirements of the Purchase Agreement.

============================

Midtown Burner project hits snag with the city

By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune

March 26, 2008

Minneapolis officials have told the developer of a proposed wood-burning power plant that it hasn’t met a key condition for buying city land for the project.

Midtown Eco Energy was told Wednesday that city officials feel it lacks a commitment from a utility to buy the project’s electricity. That’s required in the option agreement for the land.

The move leaves up in the air the developer’s ability to purchase the site at 2850 20th Av. S., now serving as a city garbage-handling station.

Midtown said in a statement that it is disappointed by the delay. “We will continue our discussions with the city, and hope the matter is resolved as quickly and judiciously as possible,” the statement said.

The option agreement requires Midtown to meet city conditions by Sunday.

Midtown earlier asked to extend that option deadline by five months, but withdrew the request and asserted that it had met all option conditions.

But the city determined that a letter dated last week from Xcel Energy said only that negotiations were underway to sell the project’s power to Xcel, without any tentative commitment. The city also wants a commitment from a higher-level Xcel official.

One thing that’s certain is that the council couldn’t grant an extension by Sunday. That raises the question of whether there’s support on the council for granting a new option.

Opinion in neighborhoods around the controversial project appears to have shifted against the project since it moved from the nonprofit Green Institute to for-profit Kandiyohi Development Partners, the politically connected group behind Midtown. Opposition also developed on environmental grounds.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Senate’s omnibus environmental bill would require the project to hire 35 percent of its workforce from nearby, require advanced diesel emission controls on trucks hauling wood to the burner, and mandate quarterly reporting of plant pollutants to neighborhoods.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438

And what’s up with the Senate Omnious Environmental Bill? It says that the Eco-Crapper would be OK if it meets these conditions?

• hire 35 percent of its workforce from nearby
• require advanced diesel emission controls on trucks hauling wood to the burner
• mandate quarterly reporting of plant pollutants to neighborhoods

SAY WHAT??? Says WHO??? Hmmmm, can’t find the bill…

OK, here it is:

SF 3385, the Environmental Ominous Bill

Starting on p. 4, l. 13:

Sec. 3. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 116.07, subdivision 4a, is amended to read:
Subd. 4a. Permits. (a) The Pollution Control Agency may issue, continue in
effect or deny permits, under such conditions as it may prescribe for the prevention of
pollution, for the emission of air contaminants, or for the installation or operation of
any emission facility, air contaminant treatment facility, treatment facility, potential air
contaminant storage facility, or storage facility, or any part thereof, or for the sources
or emissions of noise pollution.
The Pollution Control Agency may also issue, continue in effect or deny permits,
under such conditions as it may prescribe for the prevention of pollution, for the storage,
collection, transportation, processing, or disposal of waste, or for the installation or
operation of any system or facility, or any part thereof, related to the storage, collection,
transportation, processing, or disposal of waste.
After July 1, 2008, the agency may issue a new permit to a new facility located in
a community that meets all of the following conditions only if the facility also meets
the conditions of paragraph (b):
(1) is within a half mile of a site designated by the federal government as an EPA superfund site;
(2) a majority of the population are low-income persons of color and American Indians;
(3) a disproportionate percent of the children have childhood lead poisoning, asthma, or other environmentally related health problems;
(4) is located in an urban area that has experienced numerous air quality alert daysof dangerous air quality for sensitive populations between February 2007 and February 2008; and
(5) is located near the junctions of several heavily trafficked state and county highways and two one-way streets which carry both truck and auto traffic.

The Pollution Control Agency may revoke or modify any permit issued under this subdivision and section 116.081 whenever it is necessary, in the opinion of the agency, to prevent or abate pollution.
(b) If a new facility meets the conditions provided in paragraph (a), clauses (1) to (5), then a new permit may be issued by the Pollution Control Agency only if the new facility agrees to:
(1) hire at least 35 percent of the facility’s permanent employees from the community and surrounding neighborhoods within which the facility will be located and target job training and local hiring efforts to residents which meet the criteria listed in paragraph (a), clause (2);
(2) equip all diesel trucks bringing fuel to the facility with advanced filter systems that reduce emissions from diesel exhaust;
(3) report, on a quarterly basis to the community within which the facility is located, actual emissions levels, as measured by the Pollution Control Agency’s 24-hour emissions testing; and
(4) refrain from burning refuse-derived fuel, as defined by section 119.90, at the facility.

(c) The Pollution Control Agency has the authority for approval over the siting, expansion, or operation of a solid waste facility with regard to environmental issues. However, the agency’s issuance of a permit does not release the permittee from any liability, penalty, or duty imposed by any applicable county ordinances. Nothing in this chapter precludes, or shall be construed to preclude, a county from enforcing land use controls, regulations, and ordinances existing at the time of the permit application and adopted pursuant to sections 366.10 to 366.181, 394.21 to 394.37, or 462.351 to 462.365, with regard to the siting, expansion, or operation of a solid waste facility.

EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective the day following final enactment.

Here’s the Finance & Commerce article — it’s in Finance & Commerce, it must be real:

Finance and Commerce
Business News

March 28, 2008

Minneapolis “Midtown burner” plan could go up in smoke
by Burl Gilyard Staff Writer

$92 million proposal may be dead as the developer and the city fight over why it hasn’t happened

Michael Krause has long been promoting a wood-burning power plant in south Minneapolis, and his development idea is known as the Midtown Eco Energy facility.

But today, Krause is feeling burned up.

So, too, are officials for city of Minneapolis, which owns the 1.6-acre site where the plant would be built, home to a still-in-use garbage transfer station.

And the councilmember for the Midtown area, Gary Schiff, doesn’t want to spend any more time on the project.

In fact, Krause, a principal with Minneapolis-based Kandiyohi Development Partners, said that his firm is weighing legal action against the city.

Kandiyohi has a contract to purchase the city-owned garbage transfer station at 2850 20th Avenue S. for the $92 million project. But the contract requires Kandiyohi to meet a list of option requirements before a looming March 30 deadline.

City staffers don’t believe that Kandiyohi has met all of the conditions.

Greg Goeke, director of property services for the city’s Department of Public Works, sent a certified letter to the developers on Wednesday, outlining the city’s concern that Kandiyohi has no deal in hand from a utility to buy the power generated at the proposed plant. A separate, internal city memo noted that the city does not believe that Kandiyohi has secured financing for the project.

“[The letter] came as a surprise. We clearly think we’ve met all the requirements for the option,” Krause said.

In response, Krause said that his firm is considering suing the city.

“Yes. If we need to,” Krause said of potential legal action. “And I think that’s clear to everybody.”

City representatives met with the Kandiyohi team on Thursday to discuss the project’s status.

“We are continuing to work and communicate with the developer, but the power purchase agreement requirement hasn’t yet been met,” said Matt Laible, a spokesman for the city.

Krause said that Kandiyohi believes it has demonstrated that Xcel Energy is interested in the project.

A March 17 letter from Xcel Energy to Kandiyohi acknowledges that the utility is “negotiating the terms of a power purchase agreement” at the site, but makes it clear that there is no definitive agreement yet.

Xcel spokeswoman Mary Sandok declined to comment beyond the letter.

Councilmember Schiff, who has supported the project in the past, has become frustrated with the protracted project. The Midtown Eco Energy site is in Schiff’s Ninth Ward.

“They have not made progress on numerous points — we basically have had no communication or progress from them since August,” Schiff said. “They’re stuck in the water, and I don’t think we should be spending more time on it.”

Schiff noted that the developers were already granted a one-year extension on the deal to buy the site, an extension that expires on Sunday.

In a March 2007 letter to the city requesting the extension, Kandiyohi principal Kim Havey wrote, “The primary necessity of the extension is that power purchase negotiations entail a great deal of time and their conclusion is not on any predetermined schedule.”

A year later, Kandiyohi still does not have a deal.

Plans for the long-gestating project date back to 2001, when the nonprofit Green Institute first floated the idea. Krause was then executive director of the Green Institute.

He later left the Green Institute and formed the private Kandiyohi, which took over the burner project and bought the Green Institute’s research.

The city of Minneapolis issued an RFP (request for proposals) in the spring of 2006 to sell the transfer station property and develop a biomass plant. The city drew a single response: from Kandiyohi.

Kandiyohi’s plan calls for a 24.5-megawatt facility that would generate both electricity and heat. The primary fuel source would be wood, but a past Kandiyohi submission to the city also mentioned agricultural byproducts such as cornstalks and corn cobs.

Although the biomass project is touted as eco-friendly, an ad hoc coalition of neighbors, Minneapolis Residents for Clean Air, is organizing against the project.

Jullonne Glad, a member of the group, said that neighbors are concerned about the potential environmental impact of the power plant.

“That area is saturated already, and my concern is the cumulative toxicity. The reason people live there is they don’t have the means to live elsewhere,” Glad said. “We do not feel that our interests and our concerns have been taken into account.”

Krause said that Kandiyohi has been judicious in its environmental review of the project.

“The neighborhood does not have a veto over this project,” Krause said. “We’ve looked at absolutely every detail.”

Two other as-yet unresolved issues for the project are state environmental review and the status of federal production tax credits.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is currently reviewing Kandiyohi’s submitted environmental assessment worksheet (EAW) on the project, which developers submitted in January.

Kevin Kain, an MPCA project manager, said that the MPCA is waiting for some additional information on air emissions from Kandiyohi. He estimates the proposals will be ready for a public comment period in May.

Kain said the comment period should last 45 days, after which the MPCA would review the comments and make its findings.

Federal production tax credits, a financing tool widely used by renewable energy developers, are currently set to expire at the end of the year.

“It’s become a political football,” Krause said of prospects for extending the tax credits.

But those issues are moot if Kandiyohi doesn’t have a site to develop.

Nevertheless, the project still has political support. Jeremy Hanson, spokesman for Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, said Thursday that Rybak remains a supporter of the plan.

“Mayor Rybak continues to support the Midtown energy project and thinks it’s going to create a good source of alternative energy to help us address global climate change and will provide great jobs in an area of the city that’s very important,” Hanson said.

Sometimes a letter is just a letter.  A letter sure isn’t a Power Purchase Agreement!  Kandiyohi’s Midtown Eco-Crapper is having about as much luck with its Power Purchase Agreement as Excelsior Energy, but they’re spinnin’ it just as wildly!  They have a deadline approaching for the option on the property for the burner, March 31, 2008, and to exercise the option they have to pony up $50,000 for the City, and meet conditions, one of which is a “commitment” to buy the power.  This seems to be another project that’s doomed but will take a long time to go down.  Not to worry, Excelsior has been over 6 years thus far, and it’s been a hilarious road…

They don’t have a PPA.  That’s very clear, though they’re trying to muddy it with “the letter.”  I did some checking on my own, made some phone calls, sent some emails, and nope, there’s NO Power Purchase Agreement.  What they’ve got is a letter saying there is no commitment!

Xcel letter to Kandiyohi – NOT a PPA

How can it be said any more clearly:

This letter is provided solely as an accommodation to Midtown with respect to the Option Agreement and does not create any obligation on the part of NSP to agree to any terms or conditions of a power purchase agreement, or to enter into a power purchase agreement with Midtown, or to issue or provide any approvals of any proposed power purchase agreement.  

Here’s the STrib report on this today:

Small step forward for wood-burning plant

The developer has exercised its option to buy land for the power plant in the East Phillips neighborhood.

By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune

Minneapolis officials are poring over a developer’s claim that it has met conditions to exercise an option to buy a city site for a wood-burning power plant in the East Phillips neighborhood.

Kandiyohi Development Partners asserted to the city in a letter received Friday that it has the necessary commitment from Xcel Energy to buy the plant’s power, one of the city’s conditions for selling its land.

That’s an abrupt change of stance in a week. Kandiyohi earlier asked the city to extend its March 30 deadline for exercising the option.

Kandiyohi’s chances appear to hinge on whether it has “a commitment to enter into a power purchase agreement” subject to reasonable conditions, as required by the option agreement. “By no means is it an ironclad agreement,” said burner opponent Jullonne Glad.

In a letter last week, Xcel acknowledged that it is negotiating with Kandiyohi. But the utility’s commitment contains a big if — if the developer and the utility reach an agreement. If so, Xcel said it will seek necessary management and regulatory approvals.

“We are negotiating with them,” said Xcel spokeswoman Mary Sandok.

Greg Goeke, who is managing the land sale for the city, said city officials will decide “in a day or two” whether the developer has met option conditions. Kandiyohi tried last July to exercise the option, but the city said it hadn’t made enough progress on the power sales agreement.

Kandiyohi said in the letter that it has exercised its option, sending the city a $50,000 check due. If the city agrees that Midtown has met all option conditions, it still must meet stiffer conditions to close on the land by the Oct. 2 deadline.

By then, the option agreement requires that Kandiyohi have all necessary government approvals, including a state emissions permit; demonstrate financing commitments, which it has obtained from Piper Jaffray; negotiate a neighborhood agreement, and have a signed power sales agreement.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438

And an interesting twist, also from the STrib, after noting the above reference to “Piper Jaffray commitments” I remembered something — Lois Quam’s new career path:

Quam, 46, talked recently about her new job spearheading environmental and health care investments at Piper Jaffray while evading questions on her political ambitions. 

Wonder if she recognizes the environmental harm of burning, the environmental harm of the Midtown Eco-Crapper — and that burning doesn’t do a thing for CO2, other than generate more!

We’re paying $4.9 billion to rebuild the Iraqi electrical system that we destroyed? What the hell do we think we’re doing there? Are we bombing them back to the stone age so corporations can make $$$$ — well, I think that’s already been established. Who benefits, who pays?

Anyone concerned about security of our electric grid should be working for distributed generation and away from vulnerable large generators a long way from load connected by vulnerable transmission lines. It’s a “DUH!” So why don’t “we” get it?

From LA Times via Truthout today, a nuts and bolts example of what we’ve done to Iraq, another argument for distributed generation, and another example of US corporations profiting from our destruction:

A Different Kind of Power Struggle in Iraq

By Alexandra Zavis
The Los Angeles Times

Monday 24 March 2008

Most residents get only a few hours of electricity a day. In a reversal of the old days, the problem is stickiest in Baghdad.

Baghdad – Khitam Radi remembers how excited she was the day her husband took her out to buy their first washing machine.

It was soon after Saddam Hussein’s fall. Foreign soldiers, journalists and officials were snapping up her artist husband’s paintings as souvenirs. The newlyweds had everything to hope for.

Now, there are days when she hates that machine. With no electricity most of the time to pump water to their apartment, Radi has to wait in line to fill her jerrycans at a communal faucet, haul the water up four flights of stairs and wash her family’s clothes by hand.

“I feel like someone is torturing me,” she said. “The Americans promised to make our lives better…. But after five years, nothing has changed.”

Violence may have dropped in Iraq, but the absence of reliable electricity remains one of the bitterest disappointments of the last five years.

The United States has devoted $4.9 billion to improve the power supply since U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003. But most Iraqis can count on only a few hours of electricity a day, especially when demand peaks in the summer and winter.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say progress has been made but warn it will take years to bring Iraq’s dilapidated system up to Western standards, an effort made even more challenging by surging demand for electricity in the last five years.

The country’s electricity woes long predate this war. The system was heavily damaged during Iraq’s eight-year conflict with Iran in the 1980s and during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It continued to deteriorate the next dozen years under the United Nations embargo, when spare parts were hard to come by.

By 2003, the World Bank estimated that it would cost $20 billion to rehabilitate the electricity network, and the price tag continues to go up. The Iraqi government’s current estimate is $27 billion.

U.S. officials never intended to do more than jump-start the process, said Col. Mike Moon, who heads the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ electricity sector in Iraq.

The U.S. investment has added just over 2,200 megawatts to Iraq’s generating capacity, which now stands at about 5,500 megawatts.

Five years ago, that would have been enough to cover the country’s electricity needs, but demand has increased 125% because Iraqis are buying more energy-intensive devices, said Terrence Barnich, a senior advisor with the U.S. government’s Iraq Transition Assistance Office.

Since the fall of Hussein’s regime, Iraq has been flooded with cheap electrical imports from China, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Already, stacks of fans, water-based air coolers and refrigerators are displayed in front of stores in anticipation of summer, when temperatures can approach 120 degrees.

Adding generating capacity has helped, but the amount of power produced on any given day rarely reaches peak potential. For a start, keeping the turbines spinning requires fuel. Iraq has the world’s second-largest proven oil reserves, but its refining capabilities are limited and its power plants are beset by fuel shortages. Oil and electricity installations are also constantly attacked, creating disruptions that can destabilize the entire network.

Nearly 1,200 electricity employees have been kidnapped or killed or have fled the country since 2003, Electricity Minister Karim Waheed told reporters in August.

“We cannot ask our employees to work in certain parts of Iraq due to the insecurity,” he said. “I mean, they are workers. They are not army soldiers.”

Despite those setbacks, electricity production averaged 4,380 megawatts a day in the last quarter of 2007, enough to meet nearly half of the national demand, according to a report by the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

But how much electricity is available to consumers varies greatly. Priority is given to essential services such as hospitals, police stations, fire stations and water treatment and sewage plants. So nearby homes and businesses enjoy a near-continuous supply of power.

Government offices and universities are in the next category. “Then there is everybody else,” Moon said. “They are the first ones to lose power.”

The pain of frequent outages is felt most acutely in Baghdad, which received 16 to 24 hours of power a day before 2003.

Hussein diverted electricity from the provinces to keep the capital fully powered, but the current government is striving for a more equitable distribution across the country. That means that Baghdad receives less power while the rest of the country typically receives more.

Baghdad also suffers disproportionately from the effects of the violence. Most of Iraq’s power is generated in the north and south of the country, and the towers supporting the lines that bring electricity to the capital are frequent targets.

To make matters worse, some parts of the country are taking more than their share of electricity before it reaches Baghdad. With no central means to control the flow of electricity from far-flung power stations, officials in Baghdad must get on the phone with their provincial counterparts and ask them to flip a switch to redirect power to the capital. Often they refuse, Waheed said.

In some cases, this is a result of a sense of entitlement on the part of provinces that were starved of power under Hussein.

But employees at local control stations are also at the mercy of armed gangs who force them to keep power flowing to their areas, Waheed said. He singled out the cities of Basra, Mosul and Baqubah as among the worst culprits.

As temperatures rise after an unusually cold winter, pressure is easing on the national grid and Baghdad residents are enjoying 10 to 14 hours of power a day. But the supply is unpredictable.

When the lights suddenly come on, Radi jumps up from the table where she has been chatting with a visitor and starts stuffing clothes into the washing machine in hopes of getting a load done before losing power again. She then switches on the TV so her two toddlers can watch cartoons, and she can relax. But the certainty that they will soon be sweating through the summer keeps the family from fully enjoying this respite.

Most families supplement their meager electricity supply with power from a generator. Few can afford the fuel to run their own, but in most neighborhoods an entrepreneur will sell them a few extra hours of power from a shared generator for about $50 a month. But even that’s too expensive for Radi’s family.

She says she doesn’t even bother putting food into the refrigerator anymore; it would just spoil. Instead, she buys blocks of ice, which she breaks into chips to fill a cooler. On hot summer nights, she and her family curl up on the roof to catch the evening breeze. But even there, it is sometimes too stifling to sleep.

“I feel sick just thinking about it,” Radi said.

To help meet the summer demand, Waheed has been negotiating deals to buy electricity from Iran and Turkey, and diesel to keep his plants running.

Taking advantage of the improved security, the ministry’s crews have been making much-needed repairs to the lines that bring power to the capital.

For the first time in five years, Moon said, “I think it could be a very bearable summer.”

——–

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

Times staff writer Usama Redha in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Telling it like it is in the world of coal — exposing the truth about coalers’ strong-arming and bullying.  This clear specific editorial should be up for an award!  Here it is in its full glory:

J. TODD FOSTER: Newspaper’s Editorial Position Is Not For Sale
Sunday, Mar 16, 2008
BY J. Todd Foster
Bristol VA Herald Courier

Reasonable people can disagree about Dominion Virginia Power’s proposal to build a coal-fired power plant in Wise County.

Reasonable people.

That would not include a few members of a nine-member Wise County delegation that recently visited the Herald Courier to ambush our three-member editorial board for its muted opposition to the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center.

I SAY MUTED because we realize that society’s energy needs have outpaced production, and – given our love of Southwest Virginia – we are not unfriendly to Big Coal. We also know this proposed $1.8 billion plant could help a depressed area and would be more environmentally friendly than existing ones.

The problem is the cumulative impact this plant would have when combined with other, existing major polluters. And the plant’s promise to harness new technology for capturing carbon dioxide seems to be more of a pipe dream.

Our past conditional support of this plant changed to opposition late last year when it became clear that the Dominion project could not possibly live up to its press releases.

And so our opinion page editor, Andrea Hopkins, writing on behalf of our editorial board – whose other members are yours truly and Publisher Carl Esposito – has written thoughtful, nuanced editorials against the project.

WE’VE GOTTEN much praise and much condemnation. It comes with the territory.

One legislator even noted that our newspaper was founded more than a century ago by a coal magnate, the implication being that we’re disloyal ingrates. Never mind that knowledge evolves: For example, we now know Earth is not flat and that slavery was barbaric.

Some members of the visiting Wise County delegation (one called us back to apologize for the shameful behavior of some of the others) went way too far in their condemnation, however.

Mark Wooten, chief engineer of A&G Coal Co., noted that his company may have to rethink spending future advertising dollars with our newspaper because of our editorial opposition to the Dominion plant. And he chided us for not printing a story (we were never told about) on his company building a playground in a show of altruism.

WOOTEN NEVER mentioned the real nature of his angst with us – the fact that in 2004, we broke the story of Jeremy Davidson. A&G ultimately paid the toddler’s family $3 million after a boulder from one of A&G’s strip mines rolled down a hillside and killed the little fellow while he slept in his bed.

Regardless, Esposito quickly reminded Wooten that our editorial position is not for sale.

Next came Ronald C. Flanary, executive director of the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission. He defamed Hopkins with a totally baseless allegation that she plagiarized some of her editorials. He was lashing out at us for disclosing that an opinion column penned by his pal, state Sen. Phil Puckett, was actually written and published by others – the real definition of plagiarism.

Esposito, who as publisher runs the entire enterprise known as the Herald Courier, informed Flanary that his allegation was “heinous” and pressed him for proof.

IT’S BEEN a month, and we’re still waiting.

The fact is, there is no proof and never will be. Even so, Flanary repeated the falsity in a Feb. 21 letter to “Mr. Carl Esposito, Editor” and carbon-copied Hopkins and me, although he changed my name to Todd Miller, which might explain why I never got it.

His letter stated in part that some of our editorials were “particularly stinging and do not reflect, in our opinion, that the
newspaper editorial staff has fully apprised itself of all sides of the issue(s) before rendering an opinion.”

Perhaps Flanary is right. It is true that our editorial board has not given equal time – to the opponents of the Wise County plant. (Our three meetings on this matter have included two with Dominion Power and one with Flanary’s delegation from Wise County.)

BUT UNLIKE Flanary, who doesn’t even bother to double-check the titles and names of the very people he’s condemning (even though they’re printed in the newspaper every day), Hopkins does her homework.

You don’t have to take my word for it.

“The writer’s strong opinion is always supported by strong evidence,” wrote the journalism judges who just awarded Hopkins our company’s highest honor for commentary.

Hopkins is the 2007 commentary winner of the D. Tennant Bryan Award, named for the founder of our parent Media General Inc.

HER THREE columns were selected from among entries by 22 newspapers throughout the Southeast.

The Bryan Award judges – three independent journalism experts from outside the company – noted that Hopkins’ reliance on evidence “has the effect of exposing the reader to information he or she may otherwise not encounter. The writer consistently acknowledges others’ opinions but provides a clear point of view written in plain language.”

Hopkins’ award is no fluke: Last night in Roanoke, she picked up two first-place awards, for editorial and column writing, from the Virginia Press Association. They’ll go on a bookshelf next to the same two awards she won last year, and alongside the award from the Tennessee Press Association for the best 2006 editorial in the state against all competition, including Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga.

Meanwhile, The Roanoke Times has reached the same editorial conclusion about the proposed Dominion plant.

IN AN EDITORIAL reaffirming its position Friday, The Roanoke Times opined: “If Dominion Power is granted approval for this plant, the people in and around Wise County will pay the highest price. Already, residents of that area live in what the Harvard School of Public Health terms the ‘cone of death,’ where they are at three to four times higher risk of death from pollution-related causes.”

Note to Flanary, who I hear has since written a letter of apology to the publisher (I haven’t seen it): Reprinting the paragraph above is not plagiarism because I cited the Roanoke paper twice.

J. Todd Foster – not Miller – is managing editor of the Bristol Herald
Courier and can be reached at jfoster@bristolnews.com or (276)A
654-2513.

The Comments of the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project EIS drove a few stakes into the slimy heart of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project, the IGCC coal gasification proposal from hell. Now that they’re finally public… It’s going to be an interesting week.

US EPA Comment on Mesaba DEIS

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Letter January 31, 2008 and attachments

These agency Comments, and the way they were disappeared, made me wonder what else might be out there, so I fired off Subpoena Requests yesterday:

Cover letter – Subpoena Requests from OAH

Subpoena Request – Department of Commerce

Subpoena Request – Public Utilities Commission

Subpoena Request – Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Subpoena Request – Dept. of Natural Resources

And from there, it’s time to move on to the feds, so I fired off a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the DOE, and soon the Environmental Protection Agency:

FOIA- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

FOIA – Department of Energy – NETL

EPA FOIA sent via email…

Oh, yes, we are having fun…