Legalectric

Do you know that up by Duluth, the Arrowhead Transmission Line runs parallel, and directly over, the Willard Munger Trail in some places?

In Mendota Heights, the SE Metro line runs right over a playing field and next to a school (in South St. Paul and Sunfish Lake it runs right over and right next to houses).

These just came in from a concerned mom in the wealthy suburb of EDINA(!) in the Metro… here’s where they play soccer — Garden Park near Vernon and Hansen. Can you believe it? Given SE Metro and this, there goes the class argument. Check the size of this line!

Is this where you’d want to take a leisurely stroll? Sure, with a gauss meter for company!

And mom says I have to post this “kid with an attitude” or she’s dropping the kids off at my house for a week! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGH, ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Then again, my little pups love kids… for lunch…

That’s the headline in the Sunday Times – Britian. It’s about time that another government acknowledged what a friend in reinsurance calls “the next asbestos.”

(And a translation for those of us on this side of the pond — pylons are transmission line structures, and masts are the cellular towers!)

Electrical fields can make you sick

Sarah-Kate Templeton, Medical Correspondent

A GOVERNMENT agency has acknowledged for the first time that people can suffer nausea, headaches and muscle pains when exposed to electromagnetic fields from mobile phones, electricity pylons and computer screens.

The condition known as electrosensitivity, a heightened reaction to electrical energy, will be recognised as a physical impairment.

A report by the Health Protection Agency (HPA), to be published next month, will state that increasing numbers of British people are suffering from the syndrome. While the total figure is not known, thousands are believed to be affected to some extent.

The report, by the agency?s radiation protection division, is expected to say that GPs do not know how to treat sufferers and that more research is needed to find cures. It will give a full list of the symptoms, which can include dizziness, irregular heartbeat and loss of memory.

Although most European countries do not recognise the condition, Britain will follow Sweden where electrosensitivity was recognised as a physical impairment in 2000. About 300,000 Swedish men and women are sufferers.

The acknowledgement may fuel legal action by sufferers who claim mobile phone masts have made them ill.

In January Sir William Stewart, chairman of the HPA and the government?s adviser on mobile phones, warned that a small proportion of the population could be harmed by exposure to electromagnetic fields, and called for careful examination of the problem.

The HPA has now reviewed all scientific literature on electrosensitivity and concluded that it is a real syndrome. The condition had previously been dismissed as psychological.

The findings should lead to better treatment for sufferers. In Sweden people who are allergic to electrical energy receive government support to reduce exposure in their homes and workplaces.

Special cables are installed in sufferers? homes while electric cookers are replaced with gas stoves. Walls, roofs, floors and windows can be covered with a thin aluminium foil to keep out the electromagnetic field ? the area of energy that occurs round any electrically conductive item.

British campaigners believe electrical devices in the home and the workplace, as well as mobile phones emitting microwave radiation, have created an environmental trigger for the syndrome.

There is particular concern about exposure to emissions from mobile phone masts or base stations, often located near schools or hospitals.

In January Stewart also called for a national review of planning rules for masts. The review was launched by the government in April.

British sufferers report feeling they are being ?zapped? by electromagnetic fields from appliances and go out of their way to avoid them.

Some have moved to remote areas where electromagnetic pollution is lower.

The HPA report is eagerly awaited by campaigners. Alasdair Philips, director of the campaign group Powerwatch, said: ?This will help the increasing number of people who tell us their GPs do not know how to treat them.?

Rod Read, chairman of Electrosensitivity UK, added: ?This will be the beginning of an awareness of a new form of pollution from electrical energy.?

DIANE AND BERT SCHOU – ON THE FRONT LINE OF ELECTRICAL SENSITIVITY

This is the issue for my clients, Diane and Bert Schou, in Cedar Falls, Iowa, who are battling Cedar Falls Utilities and the Iowa Utilities Board, working toward having the permit denied or the transmission line rerouted. It’s important to put a face on electrical sensistivity — this is very real. Diane Schou is very real, her injuries are real.

Diane has developed electrical sensitivity, and it has made life very, very difficult. Every day, she must take extreme precautions to protect herself from the signals emitting from a local cell tower. There is a LOT of information out there on EMF, electrical sensitivity, biological impacts, and precautions that should be taken, including:

EMF-RAPID report
A pooled analysis of magnetic fields and childhood leukaemia
Black on White, just published in English, the experiences of hundreds of people suffering from electric sensitivity. This is the site with the entire book, available for downloading. It’s BIG, be prepared.

Here are a couple of general sites with a LOT of information:
The Swedish Association for the Electrically Sensitive
The Power Line Task Force’s www.powerlinefacts.com

Now, to add injury to Diane’s electrical injury, Cedar Falls Utilities wants to put a transmission line 70 feet from her home, located directly on the other side of the road. And the Iowa Code requires that lines be sited only where it will not “inconvenience or cause undue injury” to affected property owners. The Administrative Law Judge of the Iowa Utilities Board did not take Diane Schou or Iowa law into account.

The route that Cedar Falls Utilities has chosen as their “preferred” route is odd, in that it doesn’t utilize already existing transmission corridors through the area, and that it goes right past a registered landing strip and the Schous’ home. It is carefully routed around all the new development in the area, development that equals the new residential load growth! The new substation is going up about a mile east on Ridgeway, the same road that Schous live on.

The new substation is located near the John Deere factory, but a look at the map shows that there are at least four substations named for Deere facilities — that’s the main load in the area. Deere seems to be the primary benefactor of this line.

Here’s the Des Moines Register article about their case:

Cedar Falls woman loses bid to block power line extension

Things have changed a bit since that article! Since the last blog report, when the Iowa Utility Board approved seven issues for appeal, a VERY favorable Order (here’s that Order), we’ve submitted our Initial Brief, as did Cedar Falls Utilities and the Office of the Consumer Advocate, and we submitted Reply Briefs as well. Cedar Falls Utilities has made three Motions to Strike, to strike me as their attorney, to strike Exhibits and to strike me as their attorney and my brief again! It’s been a legal marathon. We’ve replied to their Motions with a legal “pffffffffbbbbbbbbt!” and we’ll see how the Iowa Utiltiies Board rules.

Power line capacity at center of debate in western Minnesota

Let’s think about this a bit — all they’ve talked about is voltage. VOLTAGE SAYS NOTHING ABOUT CAPACITY! EARTH TO MARS, TALK MVA TO ME!

Let’s take another look at “Transmission for Wind” in case any of you have missed it. Here’s a link for the conductor chart from Xcel’s approved and permitted Application the SW Minnesota Transmission Proceedings that shows that your basic 230kV line with ACSS conductor, which Xcel claims is now standard, already handles just a touch more than the 600MW of Big Stone. Ex. 35, App. 7. Download file If it’s a bundled line, and I can’t see why they wouldn’t bundle anything they’re building towers for, it’s twice that. The 115/161kV line for Chisago is 848MVA or so. The yellow highlighting is for the SW MN 345kV conductor specs, 2085MVA.

Here’s a link for the MAPP Form 1 showing the same 2085MVA for those who refuse to believe. Download file

And while I’m at it, attached also are the powerflows showing 213-302MVA of that 2085 MVA capacity of that line is from Buff Ridge. So maybe, MAYBE, just a hair over 10% of the capacity of this line is for wind. Download file 213MVA is the 50/50 option where generation is split between north and south as it is, 302 is the 100/0 best case scenario with all generation development in the south and more going into that 345kV line.

I found that SW Incremental Study that shows that the Buff Ridge wind energy is taking the scenic route through Dorsey, Manitoba, then over to Forbes (near the Arrowhead Sub) and then down to Chisago County sub, but it’s way too big to upload.

What the wind gives, line loss taketh away. …sigh… and here we go again, transmission “for wind.”

(oops, too much of a hurry — filed it in draft!)

I’m on a whirlwind trip through Iowa, went down to Des Moines to deliver the Schous appeal brief, Cedar Falls Utilities “Waterloo,” and am now on the way over to Cedar Falls to meet with the Schous, my clients on the 161kV transmission proposal. Things have changed since I lived on the highways — there’s wireless in the Rest Areas through Iowa! Come on, Minnesota, get with it!

And look what I found here in Iowa right near the Ft. Dodge/Waterloo exit, Hwy 20. They seem to be on shorter structures:

But I’ve been up all night, I’m running out of gas, running out of computer batttery, out of phone battery, out of daylight, and out of time… more later!

The Iowa Utilities Board granted the Schous’ appeal! And even better, we got a wide variety of issues through the hoop, and so we can do a very broad attack of their project and their many procedural screw-ups. It’s a big uphill battle, but we’ve made it partway up the hill. Has Cedar Falls Utilities met its Waterloo?

Here’s there decision: Download file

And here’re the points they’re going to take up on appeal:

1. Failure to provide notice of the petition as required by Iowa Code § 478.5 and 199 IAC 11.5(2).

The Schous raise the issue of failure of CFU to provide the required notice because it was not published before the hearing and, when published, the notice was only published one day each week rather than everyday for a two-week period. This is an issue that the Board will consider on appeal.

2. The findings of the ALJ in the proposed order are not supported by competent and substantial evidence and the ALJ erred in not admitting certain evidence offered by the Schous.

The Schous raised several issues concerning the failure of the ALJ to admit certain evidence and that certain of the ALJ’s findings were not supported by the record. The Board will consider these issues under the general heading of whether there is a preponderance of evidence to support the decision of the ALJ.

3. Application of the appropriate standard for admission of expert testimony and the qualifications of CFU’s witnesses.

The Schous contend that CFU witness Dr. Siles was not qualified to testify as an expert on the effect of EMF on humans. The Schous did not raise the same issue with CFU’s other witnesses, however, the Board will consider the qualifications of the three CFU witnesses and the opinions they gave concerning power line emissions and EMF effects on humans.

4. Exclusion of evidence concerning landing strip.

The Schous contend that CFU failed to address the location of a helicopter landing strip within ½ mile of the proposed power line. The Board will consider this issue on appeal.

5. Alternate routes not properly considered.

The Schous contend the ALJ did not give proper consideration to the alternative routes, especially the one offered by Consumer Advocate. The Board will consider this issue on appeal.

6. Failure to meet the standard of “necessary for public use.”

The Schous contend that CFU did not meet the requirement that the proposed line is necessary to serve the public use. The Board will consider this issue on appeal.

7. Failure to properly weigh evidence of injury to Mrs. Schou.

The Schous contend the ALJ did not properly weigh the effect of the proposed line on the health of Mrs. Schou. The Board will consider this issue on appeal.