Legalectric

Our dear doggy Kenya has died — we took her to the vet this morning.  She had a good long life, nearly 13 years, which is old for a German Shepherd.  Kenya is the doggy who went everywhere with me, touring the state for whatever meetings, off to Delaware to get acquainted with Alan, chased agency and utility personnel across parking lots, and for years she slept under my desk in my office in Northfield, with apples or carrots for friends and visitors to placate her.

Kenya was a rescue, from the now defunct Badger German Shepherd Rescue in Wisconsin.  After I lost my Katze in a most gutwrenching death, an engineer, “whose name I can’t recall,” was in rescue with BGSR and he found her for me, and I picked her up from her foster mom, Kelly, and we’ve been together ever since, nearly 8 years.  Kelly had had her twice as a foster, and she loved this dog.  Ken was just a pup when she climbed over a cage and got her leg caught and fell and broke her leg and hung with that broken leg until someone came in.  A woman who worked at the vet saved her and adopted her, and Kenya’s mangled leg didn’t slow her down as she grew up.  After a couple years, her first owner got divorced and couldn’t find a place to live that would take a big shep, so Kelly fostered her, and then a man took her to Indiana and then a couple years later, same story, divorce and no home that would accept a dog, so back to Kelly she went.    Then I got her and Kelly wanted to make sure I wasn’t married because Ken shouldn’t have to go through that again, and then Ken hopped in the car, which became her den, and we hammered west.    I’ve kept in touch with Kelly over the years, updates about Kenya and our other doggies, particularly about Ken’s progress in being a dog.  This is the most difficult update.   In the time Ken and I were together, she grew so much and learned how to fit into my life — no easy task.

Kenya loved being in the car, loved to go for rides with the wind whipping her firmly shep ears back  (means we had to go fast) and taking naps in the car when I was trying not to do the same in some boring meeting.  She loved the car, shout “CAR!” and she whips her head, finds it, and takes off full bore.  Above is the Delaware van, where she always begged to spend the day, hanging out in the yard, watching the world out the back door.  We got the new van just to cart them cross-country, a platform so they could see the world go by and bark at everyone waiting for the train in Chicago!  Alan’s love for the dog is obvious, and he’s the one who carted her around the last few months, carrying her down all the steps to the car here in Red Wing, and carrying her so she can sleep upstairs and then down in the morning.  Despite her infirmities, we continued to take her most everywhere, for a ride, to lay in the sun on a picnic, and to lay in Lake Byllesby.  He’s also the giver of the chicken, her concentrated protein favorite, and a frequent provider of ice cream and donuts for her vet ordered diet.

She’s seen the world, well, much of the US, been back and forth and back and forth and back and forth to Delaware, has peed in Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Itasca, the Canisteo Pit, the Delaware and Mississippi and Rush rivers, the Delaware Water Gap and and particularly liked Frontenac Beach and Lake Byllesby.  She wasn’t much for fetch, but she loved to have her own Wubba and run circles around Krie when Krie was fetching (and Krie was one fetching dog).

Ken had  been significantly declining for over two years, and July of 2008, she was diagnosed with early renal failure, and we’ve been nursing her along with a special diet and some drugs, pee pills too, which helped a lot until maybe two months ago, when she lost ability to walk and then, to get up.  She was incontinent more and more often, first peeing, and lately pooping.  She was eating and eating and eating and drinking and drinking and drinking, and what goes in comes out.   Oh, did it…  Prednisone helped her pain, and we took her to the chiropractor, but there are no miracle cures, and though her pain was better, that was obvious and a relief to us all, the rear half of her body was shot.  She couldn’t get up without help (unless we were heading to the door with car keys in hand), needed to be held up in her sling to get around and go outside, and needed nearly constant attention.  And today, off to see Brent Born, Kenyon Vet Clinic — our favorite vet — the one who helped us have two bonus years with Kenya.

We miss her terribly and there will be a big hole where Kenya was for quite some time… it’s been a rough year…

Long live the K & K Grrrrrrrrrrls !!!!

Kenya   October 1, 1997 – May 26, 2010

Krie       January 31, 1998 – January 2, 2010

PSEG has announced that they have filed an “Early Site Permit Application” with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

PSEG Power and PSEG Nuclear file Early Site Permit Application

It’s now on the NRC website:

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/esp/pseg.html

The Press Release says:

The preferred location for a potential new
plant would be adjacent to PSEG Nuclear’s Salem and Hope Creek
Generating Stations now in operation in Lower Alloways Creek, Salem
County.  The site is currently the second largest nuclear facility in
the United States.

That’s right across the river from us in Port Penn, Delaware…

And let me get this straight, they think this can fly?  Who would finance it?  Who would buy it?

• Energy prices are at an all time low, peak demand is at an all time low.

1. PJM State of the Market Report 2009 – Marketing Analytics
2. PJM State of the Market Report 2010 (1Q) – Marketing Analytics
   

• On the other hand, nuclear, NEW nuclear, is at an all time high, the capital cost is well over $6,500/kw.  Unless it’s subsidized 100% by ratepayers, who could afford it — anything is easy to afford if someone else pays, so…

What planet are they on?

It was one of those weeks.   First CapX 2020 provides official notice that the Brookings-Hampton transmission line is delayed.  [Motion to Suspend Proceedings!]

Hot in the heels of CapX 2020’s notice of “delay” of the Brookings-Hampton transmission line, PSEG provides official notice that it is withdrawing their NJ DEP permit for the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line:

Please take notice in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:A12.6(f). Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) is hereby amending the above-referenced permit applications submitted to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). PSE&G is withdrawing the applications for the section of the Project located to the west of the proposed Hopatcong Switching Station. The municipalities west of the Hopatcong Switching Station include Sparta Township, Byram Township, Andover Township, the Town of Newton, Fredon Township, Stillwater Township and Hardwick Township The company may resubmit a new application or applications to NJDEP for the western section of the Project at a later date.

It’s all here in their Notice to affected towns:

PSEG’s Notice of Withdrawal – NJ DEP

And here’s the real deal:

PSEG Amended NJ DEP Permit filed 5/14/10

The funniest part is this — AS IF!!!

We know that they’ve got a problem at the Delaware Water Gap… we know they’ve got a problem at the NJ DEP… Now I wonder… how much of the Pennsylvania part is withdrawn???

Just like the CapX 2020 transmission project, the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission project was approved as a whole, the studies used to justify it were on the project as a whole, the BPU decision approving the project was on the project as a whole… so what, now they can say they just don’t need that part???  I don’t think so…

Last week, well really for the last two months, Kenya has had a very rough time, and so have I.  She’s been with me for almost 8 years now, always with in the car, going to meetings, snoozing under my desk, eating carrots and apples, even barking at Matt Entenza’s father-in-law…  She’s going on 13, very old for a shep, and about two years ago, she was diagnosed with early stage renal failure.  I thought she was a goner, but she’s been taking Azodyl, a pee pill so she’s not, well, peeing, no way will I put her in diapers, and for the last year, she’s been unable to get upstairs.  Two months ago it got really bad and she pretty much couldn’t walk anymore, and we used a sling to get her in and out of the house, and carried her up the stairs.  Alan really loves the ol’ doggy and carts her around everywhere.  But a German Shepherd is not easy to cart around!

The last two weeks, she’s been barking all the time, and obviously not a happy pup, and I was miserable, “feeling her pain” and I couldn’t get anything done between her barking and needing attention constantly, here a carrot, then a drink, then go outside, and then a DQ for the dog, next thing you know, the day is gone.  She was so bad off that she started walking on the wrong sides of her toes.  I called the vet, and was prepared to have her put down, I couldn’t stand to watch her dragging herself around and flopping like a fish.  Alan didn’t want to let her go, and we checked to see if there was anything we could do.  The vet said she’s got back problems, and we decided to try this one last thing, and put her on prednisone — in just two days (he said we’d know if it helped in 72 hours) she is obviously better, and when she’s better, I’m better (try working with a miserable dog at your feet…).  She even purposefully corrected her gait, and put “the dirty side down” when going out yesterday.  All day yesterday she got up to drink and got up to go out all by herself, none of that barking to let us know she needed help.  LOOK MA, NO HANDS!  Like WOW!

Today we did the other part, we took her to the chiropractor.  Really…

Moe Bodyworks

We drove up to the cities, armed with her favorites — bananas and donuts — and Alan carried her in to meet Dr. Moses Sarah Smith, D.C. She went right to it and adjusted her, and knowing what I know from my destroyed back, poor Ken… her neck was off, and some mid back, but in the lumbar, she was a mess, and a hip was weird too, and even one of her shoulders.  You could hear the cracks.  The poor dear…  It hurt her a bit, but she didn’t get all snarly.  I swear she looks perkier.  We stopped on the way back for a bit of a picnic at Lock & Dam #2, Ken was such a happy dog laying in the grass admiring the big ball bird diverters on the shield wires on that line across the river…  she’s smiling again.  And when Ken’s smiling, I can kick Xcel ass!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Long live Kenya!

It’s out,  and although the court rejected the arguments of Excelsior Energy saying they didn’t get enough out of the PUC, and rejected the arguments of Minnesota Power and Xcel Energy, the bottom line is that the Public Utilities Commission won, their Order stands, and so in a small way, Excelsior Energy has “won.”

There were three issues before the court:

I. Did the commission err in determining that the Mesaba project is an IEP under Minn. Stat. § 216B.1694, subd. 1?

II. Does Minn. Stat. § 216B.1694, subd. 2(a)(7), require the commission to undertake its traditional public-interest evaluation?

III. Was the commission’s application of the IEP statute to Excelsior’s PPA arbitrary and capricious or unsupported by substantial evidence?

Bottom line?

We defer to the commission’s expertise as to the definition of the technical term ―traditional technologies.‖ The commission’s decision that the Mesaba project is an IEP is supported by substantial evidence.
The commission has the statutory authority to consider the public interest in evaluating the terms and conditions of an IEP’s PPA. Its decisions in this regard are supported by substantial record evidence and are not arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, the commission did not err in concluding that Excelsior’s proposed power-purchase agreement with Xcel is not in the public interest under Minn. Stat. § 216B.1694, subd. 2(a)(7).

Here’s the full decision, issued today at 10:00 a.m.

May 18, 2010 Excelsior Energy-Mesaba Project Appellate Decision