Legalectric

YES!!!  A stray voltage win in Wisconsin, well, TWO stray voltage wins in Wisconsin.  It’s been a rough week for those poor folks at Xcel…

Here are the cases:

Gumz v. Northern States Power

Schmidt v. Northern States Power

And here’s an article from the Wausau Daily Herald:

Posted December 7, 2007

Stray-voltage award OK’d

State’s high court: Athens-area farmers due $532,000 in damages

By Kevin Murphy
For the Wausau Daily Herald

MADISON — The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a $532,000 damage award Thursday to two rural Athens dairy farmers in a stray voltage lawsuit brought against Northern States Power Co.

In a 4-3 decision, the court also upheld Marathon County Circuit Judge Gregory Grau’s rulings that James and Michael Gumz filed the suit within the six-year time limit and jurors could not reduce the damage award based on any alleged deficient farming practices.

James Gumz, who lives along Highway E, said the case he filed in 2001 has dragged on so long that he was not excited by Thursday’s ruling.

“I will be when I see the money,” he joked.

The Gumz family’s dairy herd first exhibited production and health problems in 1991, which was 10 years after James and Michael bought their parents’ farm, served by an electric line installed in 1937.

Although as early as 1993 veterinarians suspected the cows’ symptoms might involve some “outside phenomena,” they concentrated on changing nutrition and milking equipment as the solutions.

Their veterinarian wrote NSP in 1996 stating she suspected stray voltage was causing the herd’s production problems and requested an inspection of the farm’s electrical system. Although NSP’s tests found no problems above a state-prescribed “level of concern,” an electrician hired by the Gumzes found much higher levels of stray voltage coming from off the farm.

On the electrician’s advice, the Gumzes installed electrical equipment, and fewer cows died and production increased. Problems returned by 1999, and when NSP’s test found no stray voltage problems and the Gumzes’ electrician did, the Gumzes filed suit in 2001.

After losing at trial and appeal, NSP appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court but lost again on their statute of limitations and other arguments.

“Prior to May 1996, the Gumzes did not know, nor with reasonable diligence should they have known, that stray voltage from Northern States Power was the cause of damage to their herd,” wrote Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.

Justices Annette Ziegler, David Prosser and Patience Roggensack dissented. 

And an Associated Press story:

 Supreme Court upholds nearly $533,000 award in stray voltage case

About time…

It’s here, on No CapX 2020:

Notice of Meetings in Republican Eagle

It’s a step, but not something to get too excited about … yet…

In Delaware’s News Journal:

Energy Department to reconsider push for Mid-Atlantic power lines 

Lots of people had asked for rehearing on approval of the Corridors:

Rehearing page – scroll down for Petitions

This was in my inbasket yesterday:

Order Granting Rehearing

So they’re granting the requests to THINK about it… that’s why it’s a step, but…

Here’s the PR blurb:

DOE Issues Orders Granting Requests for Rehearing

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued orders
granting rehearings for the Report and Orders designating
the Mid-Atlantic Area National Transmission Corridor
(Docket No. 2007-OE-01) and the Southwest Area National
Transmission Corridor (Docket No. 2007-OE-02). The orders
are available on the “Applications for Rehearing” page on
the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors and
Congestion Study Web site at http://nietc.anl.gov/index.cfm

For More Information
********************

For more information about the National Interest Electric
Transmission Corridors and Congestion Study, visit
the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors and
Congestion Study Web site or contact us at:
nietcwebmaster@anl.gov

Today the “Exceptions” to the ALJ’s Recommendation in the Chisago Transmission Project case were due.  Once again, the Department of Commerce has outdone itself in bizarro submissions.  Click on the documents below to check them out, and really, DO read the one from Commerce:

ALJ Recommendation for Chisago

And here’s what we all had to say about the ALJ’s recommendation:

Exceptions – City of Lindstrom

Exceptions – Xcel

Exceptions – Concerned River Valley Citizens

Bizarro “non-exceptions” – Commerce

Something tells me that the PUC argument on this one will be a hoot!  Ought to sell tickets…

Nope, Xcel’s line is NOT Volkommen in Lindstrom! The ALJ decision in the Chisago Transmission Project came out late yesterday, and the ALJ did find that Xcel “needed” the line, and that it should NOT go through downtown Lindstrom, but instead should go to the north, around downtown Lindstrom, by going up around the lake and then rejoin the existing corridor. That answers some of the city’s concern, the major concern of the unworkable mix of that transmission line and the city’s plans for upgrade of Highway 8. The DOT’s Todd Clarkowski presented detailed information about the plans and impacts, plans that have been many years in the making. That, and his 12+ foot color plan, made the case! Amazing what a little subpoena can do.

Hot off the press, here’s the Recommendation:

Chisago – ALJ Findings, Conclusions & Recommendation

The ALJ did a great job setting out the Department of Commerce’s power grab and attempted power take that did not sit well, and all we have to do now is get an engineer on Commerce staff — one would think that’d be regarded as a necessity, but we’re just not there yet.