Legalectric

Back to Public Utilities Commission rulemaking, this time Chapter 7829.

A while back, I’d filed a Petition for Rulemaking:

Overland Petition for Rulemaking Ch 7829 March 24 2011

Then about two years later, the PUC published proposed rules:

Initial Proposed Rules_20132-83863-01-4

Then there was a Comment Period, but hey, I knew nothing, as I was NOT notified, and didn’t find out until I discovered it, utterly accidentally, on the PUC site, color me more than a little bit peeved:

Overland 7829 Comments June 2013-Corrected

So there’s a Commission meeting, and they issue the draft with a request for comments on specific issues:

Notice & Request for Comments 20138-89998-01

Proposed Rules 20137-89560-02

And I’m  comparing their initial proposal with what’s been released, major changes, and they’re not explained, and on behalf of NoCapX 2020 and U-CAN, I have this to say:

NoCapX and U-CAN Comments Sept 6, 2013

It never ends… and really, folks, we do need the PUC to have a rule about statements made to the Commission, clearly stating that statements and representations are expected to be true, and if not, well, then you deserve what happens!!!

.

Those folks have been working overtime…

EQB Meeting

 

September 19, 2013

1:00 p.m.

 

MPCA Building, Basement

Lafayette & University

St. Paul, MN

Below is the EQB packet for the September 18, 2013 meeting.  There’s a Silica Sand Update, and their view of “Standards and Criteria” begins on p. 13, there are 19 pages.

The good news is there’s some good stuff there.  Of course I like that they’re using my format.  It not all bad, for instance, that they’re clear that the standards and criteria apply statewide, because, DOH!  It’s criteria based, and the applications, and the issues they’re regulating, occur in only specific places.  SE Minnesota isn’t special, it’s just a place where protections of our natural resources are needed, and of course, natural resources including ones of the homo sapien variety!

Here is the EQB packet for the September 18, 2013 meeting — it starts at 1 p.m., down in the basement of the MPCA building:

EQB Board Packet 9-18-13.

So the first thing anyone with any interest in this should do is to QUICK fire off a missive requesting a Rulemaking (DNR, MPCA, EQB) Advisory Committee, indicating whether or not they’d like to serve on it.

Here’s what I send them:

Overland_Comments_Sept 8

How can you weigh in?  Just send a simple email to:  jeff.smyser@state.mn.us, bob.patton@state.mn.us, kate.frantz@state.mn.us

Subject: Silica Sand Rulemaking – EQB, MPCA and DNR

Please establish an Advisory Committee for the EQB, MPCA and DNR Rulemakings. 
I am willing to serve on the Advisory and would like to be considered as a member (if you would like to go to meetings and work on this).

Thanks,

Your name here
Your address, phone and email here

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here’s what EQB staff put in its packet to the Board — WOW.   I hope they know more about rulemaking process than they’re letting on here!

Also note they claim they only received 23 comments in response to their Request for Rulemaking.  That’s a pathetic response!  I’ll fire off a FOIA request to get the Comments.

Tuesday after next, September 17, at 7 p.m. Dr. Paul Connett will be speaking about incineration at Mayflower Church in South Minneapolis.  Be there or be square.

Photo by Bruce A. Scruton/New Jersey Herald

New Jersey Herald – Powerline Access Road Underway in Park

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this has to be reported.  There will be more bad news about transmission on the NoCapX 2020 site about that big web of transmission lines in Minnesota.  Here, now, it’s about the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission through Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

People in the Midwest do not have a clue how beautiful New Jersey is.  We think of Newark (actually, I liked Newark, spent time there for the hearing before Board of Public Utilities), we think of Elizabeth, Bayonne, we think of concrete, boarded up buildings, extreme poverty, desloation, and maybe Atlantic City which has problems of its own, and while that’s all a part of New Jersey, we need to be aware of not just Newark but of Newton… of Sparta, of  Stillwater, New Jersey, which is quite similar to Stillwater, Minnesota.  Get acquainted with the rolling hills, farm fields, the pines and granite of northwestern New Jersey.

Special thanks to Dave Slaperud of Stop the Lines and Scott Olson and his Route B Info list for keeping the world informed.

What’s the Susquehanna-Roseland line?  Once more with feeling, that sinking feeling…

This post by Bill Wolfe has some beautiful and disturbing photos, the beautiful New Jersey countryside they’re tearing up as we speak:

Watergap Powerline Destruction Starts

Lisa Chammings, of Stillwater, New Jersey, has a hayfield that they’re ripping up, despite promises that she could mow the hay underneath.  It’s been raining, everything’s wet, no way to get hay, and, well, see that NJ Herald photo above?  That’s her hay field that they’re in!

The transmission towers will be about twice as high, it’s going to be a TRI-BUNDLED 500 kV transmission line.  WOW.

The Delaware Water Gap is under siege right now, and will no longer look like this:

Here’s what they’re doing there, running a line between Pennsylvania and New Jersey:

National Park Service sold us all out for $60 million, and is allowing the transmission line to go through.  Thanks.  Let’s hear it for the public interest.

The Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line is one that President Obama ordered fast-tracked, as if it wasn’t moving along fast enough:

Obama “fast tracks” transmission?!?!?!

Obama’s Transmission BS in the News

What does Obama’s Xmsn push mean?

Photo fair use from St. Paul Pioneer Press

Ken Tilsen died yesterday.  I’ll not forget his helpful reviews, comments and support when I represented Florence Township and we sued Northern States Power, the Public Utilities Commission, Environmental Quality Board, and Goodhue County for their roles and failure to follow the law when they tried to site nuclear waste in the township in Goodhue County.

Ken Tilsen, a champion of justice for all, dies at 85

St. Paul activist, civil rights lawyer, Ken Tilsen dies

Larry Long posted this link to his archives at the Historical Society — this would be most enlightening:

KENNETH E. TILSEN: An Inventory of His Papers at the Minnesota Historical Society