Legalectric

Trying to catch up, and some nasty stuff has gone through the City’s Planning Commission and then the Council. Ages ago, I was representing folks objecting to this “ash mining” scheme between the City and Xcel Energy, and the MPCA, focused around closing the dump.

What I’ve downloaded from the May meeting:

The LabUSA lease was appropriately terminated – that project lasted only one year, well DOH, what a scam that was! Has the City of Red Wing & Xcel lease been terminated? It wasn’t then, if so, when? Does the lease they had with Xcel still exist? If that lease is still ongoing, is Red Wing still paying Xcel? Is Xcel paying the City to use that property? IT’S A TWENTY YEAR LEASE!! What’s up with that??

Here’s the whole thing, what Xcel’s plan is for electric to the data center — all 3 pages — for some reason this little document keeps disappearing!

Note — it’s this 345kV little line for the data center. The 765kV comes up from Pleasant Valley down by I-90 to a new substation just north of the “North Rochester” substation (really north of Pine Island), and then exits that new substation and heads back south… right, makes a lot of sense, costs a lot of money… whose brilliant idea was this? AND there will be a connector from the new 765kV line (it’s all one line, don’t let them fool you), a 345kV connecting the two. So NO, the 765kV aren’t for the data center, but YES, there is power coming off that 765kV down to the North Rochester substation, so NO, not DIRECTLY connected, but YES, INDIRECTLY connected, and as we say in transmission, “IT’S ALL CONNECTED!” Hope that clears it up… SNORT!!

Now this 345kV line is a double circuited line to hop over Hwy 52, from the “North Rochester” (north of Pine Island) substation to Google’s Skyway Data Center. Compare this to the info from Xcel’s Electric Services Agreement for that same data center LARGE LOAD:

And the Transmission docket is open, TL-26-135, declared complete on May 12.

(taking forever to download here at the park… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Here’s what the official map of this little stretch looks like, keep in mind that the Mankato-Mississippi 345kV line is removing and moving the 161kV underbuild and adding a second 345kV circuit. There’s a lot going on there, and it seems this line is having prostate trouble:

YEAAAAAAAAAAA, IT DOWNLOADED. 76MB?!?! Wouldn’t download, and even if it did, couldn’t upload it, just TOO BIG! Separated out the appendices from the narrative and it adds up to a fraction of that. A touch over 10 MB! Xcel, do you do this on purpose? (JUST DOWNLOADED, and am starting to read it — no answers yet!)

The Commission did declare the application complete:

Just filed, Environmental Report Scoping Comments of North Route Group and NO765MN, and process comments too:

Today the RW Chamber of Commerce held a “State of the City,” billed as Mayor Gary Iocco and Council Administrator Chris Heineman. At the most recent Council meeting it was billed as Iocco with two council members. ??

The planned part of this shindig was review by Chris Heineman, not exactly stimulating, and after he went through slides, which I’d guess from his comments that he’d done something similar last year, the baton was tossed to Iocco who improvised, and I didn’t get a lot of it down.

Here’s the recording: Nope can’t do it on phone, and can’t do it from the computer either, “Sorry, you are not allowed to upload this file type.” But I do have a recording — need to figure out how to post it.

Posting the recording wasn’t working at all on phone, but here’s what notes I’ve got, and I missed a LOT. Chris just pretty much read the slides, but it was hard to keep up with Iocco:

When I heard Mayor Iocco talking about his trip to North Dakota to tell legislators what it’s like to host a nuclear plant, my ears went up on alert. I quickly filed a Data Practices Act Request, because it sure looked stinky to me!

Particularly given who’s a “citizen” member of the committee Pam Gorman Prochaska, Xcel Energy Services. Excel Services Corporation is making a bid to be a conslutant to this Committee. Excel Services Corporation v. Xcel Energy Services??? What relation?

Here are a couple things that popped out. At the Council meeting, he said he’s been to North Dakota about nuclear three times.

First document, these missives from OCTOBER meeting, planning by Xcel, what to say:

And asking for his expenses to reimburse:

And dinner with the group:

Remember this post about a month ago? That was not long after Iocco had discussed his North Dakota trip at a Council meeting:

RW Mayor promoting nuclear in ND! April 21st, 2026

Per their minutes of the North Dakota committee, here’s what our Mayor said — compare it to the video and rough transcript below:

Well, that’s odd. “Most negative feedback from the community relates to having a power company in general, rather than to the nuclear nature of the facility.” Oh,right… he also had some bizarre things to say about comments by those opposing at the Public Utilities Commission meeting! “And some of the facts and figures from the opposing folks, those are not true facts, those are made up, how many people are dying every day in Red Wing because of the plant there.” Really, it’s on the video, toward the end.

And you’d think they’d have someone from Prairie Island Indian Community to talk about life next to the plant… but NOOOOOOO…. not mentioned by name, only that “the plant” is across the road from “Treasure Island Resort & Casino.” There are homes closer.

HERE’S THE VIDEO, Iocco’s March presentation starts at 11:04. And here’s what he had to say — accuracy is close but not quite 100%:

Once more with feeling — note that Iocco does not even know how many megawatts the Prairie Island nuclear reactors generate.

And Xcel loved it: