Legalectric

Can it be?!?! The rulemaking based on the 2005 statutory changes was published in the state register today. TODAY… 2005… SIXTEEN YEARS, and NINE YEARS since this 12-1246 docket was opened. Comments are due by November 17, more on that below.

The Public Utilities Commission did one hell of a job delaying until BILLIONS of CapX 2020, a/k/a CapX 2050 and Grid North Partners and MTEP MVP projects were rammed through. Public interest anyone? Naaaaaaah…

Here it is — First the Notice (60 page service list!), then Statement of Need and Reasonableness (SONAR) and then the proposed rules (yeah, 120+ pages):

Comments are due November 17th:

Here’s the catch — they are planning on putting these through without a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, UNLESS there are at least 25 requests for a hearing — I think that can be arranged. Here are the details, note that they must be “valid” requests, which means explain in short what you want differently in the rules:

ONWARD! SIXTEEN YEARS… UNREAL!

Statkraft may have put wind in, but the Norwegian Supreme Court says otherwise.

Here’s the Court’s press release.

From that press release, it seems that cumulative impacts was the factor that tipped the scales:

And the decision about the Fosen Vind project, IN NORWEGIAN — the court has said it will be translated in its entirety someday:

Just filed… Walleye Neighbors in Minnesota and South Dakota Comments on the Walleye Wind Draft Site Permit. Now it’s time for a nap!

Dorenne Hansen died this morning, and we’re mourning.

A visitation will be held from 4:00-7:00 p.m. on Friday, May 21, 2021 at Bonnerup Funeral Service, Albert Lea, and one hour prior to services at the church. A funeral service will take place at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 22, 2021 at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Myrtle with Pastor Josh Blair officiating. Interment will follow at Pilgrim’s Rest Cemetery. A celebration of life meal will be held at the Glenville City Hall following committal services.

She was a founder and the very life of Association of Freeborn County Landowners. When we met, she let me know that she had been living with Stage 4 cancer for a while, that was June, 2017, and she’d said that she was on some sort of trial, the longest living person in the medical world. She was a delight, off the charts brilliant, strong, exacting, and angry and a fighter in the best of ways.

Dorenne was able to motivate and turn out her community, with neighbors meeting and coming together to foil the intruder to their neighborhood.

Dorenne was a little hesitant at first, and after a few rounds with Invenergy and the Public Utilities Commission, she got in the groove, was adept at reading between the lines, and channeled her outrage into action, rallying the troops for yet another round.

Dorenne Hansen was the voice of AFCL.

Association of Freeborn Landowners got the first ever contested case for siting a wind project, and in another first, the ALJ recommended the project’s permit be denied:

No small feat!! In the STrib’s article then, on both Freeborn Wind and the Bent Tree project, wind developers and wind promoters were histrionic:

Administrative Law Judge says PUC should reject Freeborn County wind project

A choice snippet from Litchfield in the STrib article:

Dan Litchfield, an Invenergy senior manager, objected to Schlatter’s interpretation of Minnesota’s noise regulations, saying it “is impossible to meet for a wind farm. … Every other wind farm in the state has not been subject to this interpretation.”

And what did the PUC do??

Freeborn? PUC upends ALJ’s Freeborn Wind Recommendation

Marie McNamara, who has been through the PUC grist mill with Goodhue Wind Truth, put it well:

Despite getting the site permit, Freeborn Wind did move 17 of the 41 turbines to Iowa, a different sort of success, 24 shy of our goal. Yet after that initial administrative win, followed by the PUC’s 180, it was downhill from there. The last gasp of our efforts came last month:

Freeborn Wind appeal – we lose…

And then NSP/Xcel tries to send us a bill, adding insult to injury — our Objection is here:

Xcel, cost taxation? WHAT?

Throughout all these very intense years, Dorenne was undergoing routine chemo treatments, on and off and on and off, with time to recover some in between, and she was often literally working on our Freeborn Wind project while infusing! We spent a lot of time at the library bonding over transcripts, zzzzzzzzzzzzz. And Myre-Big Island State Park was right next door, so a good place to have confabs and convenient for hearings in Albert Lea.

Dorenne and I last talked not long before the appeal came down, and she was getting ready to stop chemo, which because the cancer had progressed, was on a weekly basis, utter torture with no respite between treatments. She was not having fun, her quality of life was nil, and she was ready to stop chemo, though she was so mindful of her family and friends whom she cared about and who cared so much about her. I appreciated her advance notice and a chance to let her know how much I appreciated and enjoyed and leaned on her.

Over the last four years, people in the community who had not met before got together, worked together, and became fast friends over wind turbines, becoming large parts of each others lives. Dorenne, you will be sorely missed. What an impact you’ve had… what a life well lived…

Just wow… It’s the sort of thing that makes my head burst!

Association of Freeborn County Landowners has been challenging the invasion of Freeborn Wind, a/k/a Xcel Energy a/k/a Northern States Power into this existing community.

Hundreds of meetings, filings, over the last FOUR YEARS, and we got the first contested case hearing ever for a wind project in Minnesota… the first in 20+ years of siting wind projects, and the first time a projects comes to the test, the ALJ recommends the permit be denied!

The Recommendation of the Administrative Law Judge:

The Public Utilities Commission does a perverse and contorted 180 and lets Freeborn have their way, and the public, residents be damned.

Freeborn? PUC upends ALJ’s Freeborn Wind Recommendation

Then 17 turbines left for Iowa, but 24 remain.

… we get tossed out by the appellate court, which affirmed the Commission’s decisions and Orders.

Freeborn Wind appeal – we lose…

And earlier this week, they serve this:

Let’s see… they have open access to ratepayer pocketbooks, they’re reimbursed for their costs! BY US! We ratepayers have to pay! Meanwhile, for the public to show up, and to challenge for FOUR YEARS on this project, or any project, like the Mesaba project, or CapX 2020!, people hold garage sales, put grain in at the elevator, a silent auction in a tornado, and plain old arm-twisting to cover our comparatively nominal costs.

Our objection just filed:

NOW THEY THINK WE SHOULD PAY THEM $3,312.75?

Meanwhile, don’t cha wonder how’s Xcel Energy doing these days? Their 1Q report just out… More customers, decreased sales, and stock soars:

Hmmmmmmm, remember that Texas storm? Here’s the impacts:

Xcel easily tops earnings estimates

Ain’t capitalism grand…