Legalectric

FYI, there’s a St. Croix State Park Management Plan open for comment, due July 7!  Never been to this one, yet, have looked but… Last year after Lindbergh, I sent the DNR a “We’re All Ears” comment about general experiences in the state parks, and this is more specific, so what the hell!!  I want to encourage them to have wifi in all the camps, particularly where there’s no phone access.  In Michigan, the park way way up at the tip of the peninsula of the UP has WiFi, why can’t we?

Here’s a tour of campsites at St. Croix State Park:

Their page about this plan is HERE.

The DNR will host an open house on June 22, 2017 at the St. Croix Lodge visitor center in St. Croix State Park from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. to answer questions and collect comments on the draft plan.

And the plan itself?  It’s here, check it out:

Draft St. Croix State Park management plan

Comments are due by July 7, and should be sent to:

Jade Templin    via email: jade.templin@state.mn.us

MNDNR Division of Parks and Trails
St. Croix Management Plan Comments
500 Lafayette Road Box 39
St. Paul, MN  55155-4039

Draft St. Croix State Park management plan

There’s also a 25 year Parks and Trails Legacy Plan and from that, there’s a Minnesota State Parks and Trails System Plan, and parks are one of three categories, a “Destination” park, a “Core park, or a “Rustic” park. The “Rustic” parks are ones that they say have minimal amenities, but Charles A. Lindbergh, classified as “Rustic,” had great facilities, and even canoes for rent!  Anyway, I’m digging through this today because we’re not out camping until later this month.

Check how they’ve categorized the parks in the Parks and Trails Legacy Plan, above.  The only one I’d not recommend for any reason is Big Bog, it’s buggy, hot, pretty much just a grassy parking lot, and full of big honkin’ RVs and big honkin’ pick up trucks and big honkin’ boats (it does have docks for most of the campsites).  It’s a class thing. UGH!

Destination Parks and Recreation Areas
Bear Head Lake
Forestville/Mystery Cave
Fort Snelling
Gooseberry Falls
Itasca
Jay Cooke
Lake Carlos
Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine
Mille Lacs Kathio
Sibley
Split Rock Lighthouse
St. Croix
Tettegouche
Whitewater
Wild River
William O’Brien

Core/Adventure Parks and Recreation Areas
Banning
Blue Mounds
Cuyuna Country
Interstate
Iron Range OHV
Temperance River

Core/Gateway Parks and Recreation Areas
Afton
Buffalo River
Camden
Flandreau
Frontenac
Grand Portage
Lake Bemidji
Lake Maria
Maplewood
Minneopa
Myre-Big Island
Nerstrand-Big Woods
Upper Sioux Agency

Core/Classic Parks and Recreation Areas
Big Bog
Big Stone Lake
Cascade River
Crow Wing
Father Hennepin
Fort Ridgely
Glacial Lakes
Glendalough
Great River Bluffs
Hayes Lake
La Salle Lake
Lac Qui Parle
Lake Bronson
Lake Shetek
McCarthy Beach
Moose Lake
Red River
Rice Lake
Sakatah Lake
Savanna Portage
Scenic
Split Rock Creek
Zippel Bay

Rustic Parks
Beaver Creek Valley
Carley
Charles A. Lindbergh
Franz Jevne
Garden Island
George H. Crosby Manitou
Greenleaf Lake
Hill Annex Mine
John A. Latsch
Judge C.R. Magney
Kilen Woods
Lake Louise
Minnesota Valley
Monson Lake
Old Mill
St. Croix Islands
Schoolcraft

Whoa, got some catching up to do!  Last Saturday, yes, a week ago, it was the annual open house at Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant.  They had “fewer menu options” this year, I think last time they had salad and beans, but this year it was kinda grim for us “flexitarians.”  But there was plenty of food for thought: They had a number of displays in various rooms at the training center, and maybe these were the ones that were at the Goodhue County Historical Society a while ago, some looked familiar.  Anyway, I made a bee-line for the casks, and had quite a chat with the staffer “whose name I can’t remember.”  Why casks? Well, casks and I have a long history… and some things about the casks have not been resolved.

Report of the Site Advisory Task Force – January 1996

At the very beginning of attempts to utilize casks at Prairie Island, well, let us not forget the time the crane got stuck with the cask dangling way at the top dangling over the spent fuel pool:

Licensees have also experienced problems during the 
movement of casks as a result of crane interlocks, 
errors in the accounting for the weights of cask
components, and human error...  At Prairie Island 
on May 13, 1995, a cask remained in the hoisted 
position above the spent fuel pool for approximately
16 hours while the licensee developed and implemented
 corrective actions to address an overload-sensing 
system that was inaccurately calibrated for lifting
of a loaded dry storage cask.  Changes in the
lifting procedure were required at Prairie Island 
when it was discovered that a dry storage cask 
weighed more than expected.  The weight difference 
was found to be the result of acceptable variations
 in manufacturing tolerances that had not been 
accounted for in previous weight calculations.  

See also:  NRC IN 96-26, “Recent Problems With Overhead Cranes,” issued April 30, 1996 (Accession Number 9604260095).

A very important issue to me that wasn’t resolved was how to change the cask seals.  Each cask is like a giant steel thermos, with spent fuel assemblies dropped into a grid inside the cask, a seal is put on top and then the cover is bolted down.  The seals are made of aluminum and stainless steel, and when they’re bolted down, the seal crushes some and seals the cask to prevent leakage.  Each cask has monitors that measure inside and outside pressure and are designed to notify us of leaks.  HOWEVER, these seals are to be replaced every 20 years.  That’s a problem because to replace a seal, the cask will have to go into the pool, be filled, and the lid taken off.  Putting it in the water creates two issues: thermal shock and radioactive steam. It’s my understanding that a cask loaded for an extended period has not been unloaded.  Extended meaning years, like these casks at Prairie Island.  It was tried many years ago and resulted in a 3 Stooges scenario where they got the TN 24P into the pool, took the lid off, and one of the assemblies had warped due to the high temp inside the cask, and got stuck coming out.  But they couldn’t get it back in.  So they tried pulling, pushing, called in the experts.  Read between the lines:

INEL-TN-24P-stuck

Here’s a choice on, the “Point Beach Ignition Event” where they left a loaded, but not welded, cask sitting overnight, and when the next crew came in to weld it shut, well, zinc and boron = BOOM!

Pt. Beach Cask Explosion 5/28/1996

EPRI reports on TransNuclear casks:

10150992-p15-TN-24P Warpage 10813-TN4P Leak

On Saturday, I verified that no cask seals have been replaced.  It’s been 22 years since the first cask was loaded at Prairie Island, I think it was May 1995.  So, what’s the deal here, are they just not going to do it?  Inquiring minds want to know!

I did learn that there has been limited unloading of casks, notably at Peach Bottom, and doing my homework found this report on the TN 68 (having trouble uploading here, have another better report on this… soon!):

o5/27/2011 Peach Bottom ISFSI Inspection

There’s a EPRI report on “Premature Degradation” but I’ve certainly not got the thousands of dollars to buy it. 

From the public meeting materials, here’s what they’re looking at, above.  These are significant additions to the transmission grid in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

MISO’s Economic Planning Users Group is planning a “Regional Transmission Overlay Study” and they’re having another meeting tomorrow, May 25, 2017 down in Metatairie, Louisiana.

Here’s the call in info:

WebEx Information
Event Number: 966 575 350
WebEx Password: Ts824634

Participant Dial-In Number: 1-800-689-9374
Participant Code: 823713

Meeting Materials from the MISO site:

• 20170525 EPUG Item 01 Agenda 5/23/2017 05:24 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 02 Regional Transmission Overlay Study Overview 5/22/2017 05:47 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 03 Preliminary Overlay Indicative Concepts 5/23/2017 05:29 PM
• 20170527 EPUG Item 04 Explore New Benefit Metrics RECB Survey 5/22/2017 04:42 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 05 Michigan Exploratory Transmission Study Transmission_Ideas 5/22/2017 04:44 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 05 Michigan Exploratory Transmission Study Update 5/22/2017 04:44 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 06a Indicative Overlay Design Work Session West 5/24/2017 02:20 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 06b Indicative Overlay Design Work Session Central 5/24/2017 02:21 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 06c Indicative Overlay Design Session Sub-regional Connections 5/24/2017 02:22 PM
• 20170525 EPUG Item 06d Indicative Overlay Design Work Session South public 5/24/2017 02:23 PM
• 20170525 EPUG RTOS Issues List 5/23/2017 05:45 PM
• 20170525 EPUG RTOS Ideas Tracking Sheet 5/23/2017 05:44 PM

Here’s the problem — they close the meeting, and people like me aren’t allowed to attend.  First I was told, back in January when I tried to register:

Thank you for registering for the Economic Planning Users Group (EPUG) on Jan 31.  The afternoon portion of this meeting will be held in CLOSED session and reserved from MISO Members or Market Participants only.  Please feel free to attend the morning session from 11:00 am to 12:45 pm ET / 10:00 am to 11:45 CT.

I filled out their “CEII – Non-Disclosure Agreement” form and fired it off.  But noooooo…

So next I went to the PUC’s Quarterly MISO update, where I was assured that we could make arrangements so that I could attend.  I resent the “CEII – Non-Disclosure Agreement” and went back and forth and it came to this (click for larger version).  Note this “explanation” of options to be able to attend:

The reason that you were not permitted to attend the closed session is because the meeting involved discussion of Critical Energy Infrastructure Information (CEII) and CEII access requests by Non-Member Individuals requires FERC clearance.  Another access option is to be included on Appendix A of a MISO member or Market Participant.

So that says there are two ways to gain access, 1) get “FERC clearance” or 2) “Another access option is to be included on Appendix A of a MISO member or Market Participant.”  One or the other. Emphasis added.  Here’s the email (click for larger version) laying out those two options:

Oh, I says to myself, off to FERC.  I sent in the requisite paperwork to FERC, and got “FERC clearance” and they shipped me the CEII information, including but not limited to the map.  I let MISO know I’d obtained “FERC clearance,” and here’s the response (click for larger version):

ARRRRGH, they have my CEII NDA on file, have had it since January 23, 2017.  I resent it to the writer of these emails on March 4, 2017, and I sent it again today, and objected to yet another change in their “rules” (click for larger version):

So the plot thickens — from MISO (click or larger version):

And from moi (click for larger version):

Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words.  I feel Pope Francis’ pain…  Can we trade the Pope for tRump?  Please?

From NPR:

‘He Is Something’: Trump Visits Pope Francis At The Vatican

And dig this, from the NPR report:

“At the end of the audience, the pope gave Trump copies of his writings,” NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome, “including his encyclical on climate change — a topic on which Trump has a very different opinion.”

To the guy who doesn’t read.  If only he would.  Here are a couple of prior posts about The Pope:

Pope Francis hits it over the fence!

Rep. OH Gov. Kasich & Pope on Trump

 

James McIntyre was shot outside an open house for a dam project, “Site C” for the dam.  You know, those open houses they hold to tell the public what they’re going to do before they do it… There was an investigation of the shooting by Canada’s “Independent Investigations Office,” and I’d had an alert and checked now and then, particularly a year after the shooting, but didn’t find the articles on the IIO’s November release of information until yesterday!  Here’s the report from the IIO:

07-16-2015-Dawson-Creek-Firearm-Death-2015-000104

Here are some press write ups:

Police ‘begged’ Site C activist to put down knife before shooting him, witness says

IIO clears RCMP in shooting of James McIntyre

RCMP officers cleared in shooting death of Site C protester in Dawson Creek

Look at the way the press framed this article:

RCMP officer cleared in shooting death of B.C. activist that sparked Anonymous revenge campaign

This shooting of McIntyre hit home for me because of my routine of going to the open houses and hanging out at the door, and I know so well how angry people get when there’s infrastructure proposed in their community, on their land.  They published my LTE about this in the Alaska Highway News: