Legalectric

Today at 9:00 a.m. , Alan Muller is going to be on Andy Driscoll’s Truth to Tell on KFAI, together with Rep. Frank Hornstein, Rep. Karen Clark, and Lara Norkus-Crampton, RN.

Listen here:

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Real:

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MP3:

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For more information generally, see Neighbors Against the Burner, and look for HERC.

Here’s from Andy’s Truth To Tell site:

Should Hennepin County garbage burner operator Covanta Energy be allowed to increase its burning volume by almost 20%?

State  and city permits currently allow Hennepin County and Covanta to incinerate 1,000 tons of Minneapolis and near-ring suburban garbage at the HERC (Hennepin Energy Resource Center) facility in the heart of downtown (in Target Field’s backyard, so to speak). Covanta and the county want to up that by 212 tons per day, the maximum the plant could handle.

Here’s what Hennepin County’s HERC page proclaims (boldface ours):

About 365,000 tons of garbage (1,000 per day) is burned at HERC to provide enough electricity for 25,000 homes each year. Electricity generated at HERC is sold to Xcel Energy. (Covanta labels the 33.7 megawatts they sell to Xcel Energy as “renewable”.)

Through the steam line, HERC provides enough steam for the annual natural gas needs of 1,500 homes to buildings in downtown Minneapolis and Target Field.

Residents and businesses in Hennepin County generate 1 million tons of garbage every year. Processing waste at HERC is an environmentally preferable alternative to landfilling waste.

More than 11,000 tons of ferrous metal are recovered every year at HERC and recycled.

Processing one ton of waste at HERC prevents the release of one ton of greenhouse gas emissions. Since HERC opened in 1990, processing waste has prevented the release of 3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Is burning garbage really the best way to a) manage our waste without landfilling it? and/or b) generate electricity or other forms of energy? Whatever happened to the recycling, composting and reducing waste targets developed years ago now? Is this WTE – waste-to-energy – system the healthiest alternative?

Burned materials of all kinds pour pollutants into the air we breathe – and choke on, creating unprecedented percentages of respiratory problems in children and adults, especially adults with chronic health problems.

Lead, cadmium and other heavy metals are released into the air over Minneapolis and blow in different directions at different times of the year, settling in the systems of residents all around the Twin Cities. Remember, this is added to other burning and pollutants from other sources, including energy and manufacturing companies dotting the Metro.

Even with all the money generated for Hennepin County by this burning operation, can the health protection mandate of the county and the state justify such data as an 11.4% rate of children’s asthma in Minneapolis or 9.2% county-wide?

Two years ago, the Minneapolis Planning Commission bucked its own staff’s recommendation and turned down Covanta’s and Hennepin’s request for changing the city’s conditional use permit to allow for the increased burning. Covanta started to appeal that decision to the City Council, but could see the media coverage and count the votes on the City Council Zoning and Planning Committee and pulled it back to consult with the Pollution Control Agency about modifying THAT permit to burn.

Their appeal was coming up again in Minneapolis this month – now they’ve asked for another extension for that – to October. Anti-burning advocates and other environmentalists are pressing hard to keep any more garbage from being burnt there, insisting that all burning, not just the increase, is killing people. (Watch an interview between guests Lara Norkus-Crampton and Rep. Frank Hornstein.)

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… first it’s Alan’s Birthday, now officially an old fart and then some.  And then it’s Valentine’s Day, and he just gave me the bestest gift of all:

… a succinct analysis of WI Public Service Commission staff Neumeyer’s testimony!!!

AWWWWWWWWW, what a guy, it’s just what I wanted!!!

Alan Muller ‘s office in Lake Itasca Park

And at a Rock-Tenn Burner Fest in St. Paul, being introduced by Nancy Hone, Neighbors Against the Burner:

Here’s a profile of Alan that was published in Delaware Today:

A Profile of Alan Muller of Port Penn: An Environmental Activist and Executive Director of Green Delaware

by Bob Yearick

Alan Muller takes no prisoners.

For almost two decades, the executive director of Green Delaware has held public officials’ feet to the fire of his environmental zeal. At meetings, hearings and legislative sessions, in a calm voice, Muller presents meticulously researched arguments and asks uncomfortable questions that offer no compromise.

His wrath spares few of those in power. Here’s a sampling:

Of Gov. Jack Markell: “Supporting his candidacy was the biggest mistake of my career as an advocate. He governs as a right-winger and corporate stooge. His environmental policies amount to giving the developers and polluters whatever they want.”

Of U.S. Senator and former New Castle County Executive Chris Coons: “A total servant of corporate interests and big business who knows how to work liberal do-gooder types, so they think he’s great.”

Of New Castle County government in general: “I have zero respect for it. I regard it as a criminal organization.”

Of the State Chamber of Commerce: “Probably the biggest single foe of the environment in the state.”

Wilmington Mayor Jim Baker, the DuPont Co., other Delaware environmental groups and The News Journal—which Muller calls The “Stooge Journal” (except reporter Jeff Montgomery, whom he considers a friend)—also are on Muller’s hit list.

His scorched-earth style can elicit bitter backlash. Says John Taylor, senior vice president of the State Chamber of Commerce: “Alan Muller is great at name-calling but lousy on getting his facts right. Mr. Muller attacks anyone who doesn’t agree with him 100 percent. And his narrow, misguided and misanthropic vision is well-known to those in Delaware who truly care for the environment. In fact, the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce has been an active partner in bringing clean energy to Delaware. The latest example of this being the Bloom Energy decision to come to Newark.” While Taylor no doubt expresses what many would like to, other Muller targets chose a more circumspect response. Markell, who gets high marks from many enviros, would say only, “Alan Muller believes strongly in his causes and makes himself heard.” Chris Coons’ office declined to comment. Another Muller target, Debbie Heaton, of the Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy, says merely that she does not have “happy memories” of working with him.

The official response to Muller is often to ignore or avoid him. That’s understandable, according to John Flaherty, another well-known Delaware activist. “Power hates and marginalizes people who are right, like Alan, because they reveal that the powerful use their positions for themselves and for the interests they serve. And once someone has been banished to the margins, the powerful can rely on the conditioned habits of the public. After all, don’t we all know that anyone on the margins is, by definition, unacceptable?”

According to Muller and some of his supporters, he’s been mistreated and harassed over the years—especially by New Castle County government, which has cited him for many violations at his Port Penn home, a historic building he purchased for about $15,000 (supplemented by a state grant) with the agreement to upgrade it. Muller says the price of the house and its central location between Wilmington and Dover cancels out environmental considerations like the three nearby nuclear reactors, the Delaware City Refinery and other major polluters.

In 2001 Baker had him arrested for “graffiti” and “criminal mischief” after Muller posted warning signs on an open channel carrying raw sewage through a Brandywine Park picnic area. In 2005 he and John Kowalko, then director of the ACORN utility campaign, now a state representative, were ejected from Legislative Hall during a House Energy Committee hearing. When they weren’t allowed to speak, Muller and Kowalko tied gags to their mouths. That incensed then-Rep. Robert Valihura, chairman of the committee, who ordered Capitol Police to remove them.

Calling it “death by a thousand cuts,” Muller says “harassment in the past few years has been relentless.”

Meanwhile, he laments the “plantation mentality” that pervades the state—“the reluctance of people to say anything challenging or critical,” including the media and other environmental organizations. The latter, he says, have been bought off or bullied into submission by those in power. “Other states are less hostile,” he says.

As a result, the somewhat rumpled 61-year-old, nursing “aching feet and a creaky back,” may leave Delaware, perhaps for Minnesota, where his soul mate, Carol Overland, is an energy consultant and lawyer. He spends about half of each year working for environmental groups in several states, at fees exceeding the small income he takes from Green Delaware.

As the most prominent activist in the state’s recent past contemplates taking his leave, it seems an appropriate time to examine his legacy—and his motivation.

For someone so passionate about it, Muller came relatively late to the environmental movement. But the seed was planted early. He grew up in Welshire, a North Wilmington suburb, living with his parents and a brother, who was a year younger. His father, Joseph, was a DuPont manager.

“I’m not saying my father was a bad guy,” Muller says, “but he reflected the values of the chemical industry at the time, and his proudest achievement was bollixing up an EPA effort to regulate sulfuric acid plants. He and other DuPonters went to Washington in the ’60s and testified that (regulation) was unreasonable, impossible and too expensive. As a kid, I thought about it and decided I kind of didn’t agree. I remember thinking the EPA could have gotten the technical details wrong, but it was hard to disagree with the concept of reducing pollution.”

(Of his relationship with his late parents, Muller says: “It had its ups and downs. I’d think my activism was part of it. They would have liked a picket-fence Republican son and grandkids.” Married once, briefly, Muller has no children.)

Fast-forward several years. Muller drops out of UD after his junior year (eventually earning a social sciences degree), goes on to several jobs, then finds himself working as a consultant for, ready? DuPont!

As a technical writer for the company’s engineering department, he says he worked with people who were involved in environmental cleanup and who also lobbied against stricter regulations. “I began to see how it worked from the inside. After several years of pumping out this rhetoric about ‘clean and green’ and don’t regulate us because we do the right things, when Reagan came in, all the company’s pro-environment rhetoric basically stopped, because they felt, ‘Now our guy is in charge.’”

While acknowledging that DuPont paid and treated him well, Muller says, “I began to not like the way they spent so much energy on bullshit and propaganda and suborning the regulatory process rather than just knuckling down and fixing the problems. I didn’t like being involved in that.”

And so an environmental advocate with the passion of a convert was born.

Casting about among the state’s enviro groups, he chose the Sierra Club, where he became conservation chairman. Soon his blunt style and disagreements with some club policies and members got him kicked out—via registered letter.

So, in 1995, he formed Green Delaware, recruiting longtime activists Jake Kreshtool, Ted Keller and Frieda Berryhill. Essentially a virtual organization with an email list of about 3,000 and fueled by Muller’s data-filled, aggressive newsletters, it quickly became the state’s most active—or at least most annoying—environmental group, and he gained a reputation for fact-based arguments that often irked opponents.

The 93-year-old Kreshtool, a labor lawyer and former candidate for governor, admits Muller “isn’t much on social skills,” and can be irritating, “But he’s always polite, and his testimony was determinative in many, many cases involving air pollution.”

Much of Green Delaware’s support comes from an annual $10,000-$15,000 grant from the New Jersey Environmental Federation and Environmental Endowment for New Jersey. The grant recognizes Green Delaware’s work to limit water pollution, particularly in the Delaware River. Jane Nogaki, founding chair of the endowment, says Muller “is at the top of Delaware environmental groups. He can be confrontational without being belligerent, his arguments are well-grounded, and he asks questions rather than making accusations.”

Muller clearly has scored victories—a ban on industrial incinerators probably is his most significant—but most observers agree he could have accomplished much more with a less rigid approach. “Alan rarely declares victory,” says Flaherty. “What I would consider victories in a lot of cases he considers defeats.”

Bill Zak, of Citizens for Clean Power in Sussex County, understands Muller’s attitude. “He knows that conciliation often means things getting dropped in a drawer and forgotten.”

Flaherty and Nancy Willing, author of the liberal “Delaware Way” blog, exemplify another Muller trait: burning bridges.

Flaherty calls Muller “an incredibly bright man who has made environmentalism mainstream in Delaware,” then adds, “Alan has not spoken to me since January of 2006.” According to Muller, “John stabbed me in the back” during his campaign against incinerators.

Willing, also a Muller fan, says he cut her off when he perceived that she sided with the authorities in his dispute over upgrades to his Port Penn home.

Due in part to this penchant for severing ties and his prickly style, Muller has no prospective successor as director of Green Delaware. Kreshtool, Keller and Berryhill are all 80-plus, other allies have died, and younger people haven’t stepped forward.

“In my arrogance,” says Muller, “I thought if we set an example of being smarter, of having more principled behavior than other enviros, it would rub off. Ain’t happening. Maybe it’s my lack of leadership ability.”

If he leaves, Muller and others agree that Green Delaware will probably die, an event that has his foes rubbing their hands in anticipation. For others, like Jane Nogaki, it will be a great loss.

“Today, environmental groups are using social media to spread their message,” she says, “but there’s no substitute for local, grass-roots action. And that’s what Alan always did, standing up against the giants of industry and holding politicians accountable.”

Back to Delaware for the weekend, it’s very strange being here on the east coast and Alan’s in Red Wing with the grrrrrrrrrls.  And speak of the devil, guess who’s in the Philadelphia Inquirer today?  The Valero refinery shut down, one of our neighbors works there, well, I’d guess a lot of our neighbors in Port Penn work there, it’s just up the road, they’ve been shut down for a couple of weeks, and now it’s forever.  I’m curious what Valero will do — $50 says the try to find a way to walk away from the mess they’ve created.  Nearby wells have been contaminated and people are just starting to look around for the source.    We’ll see…

Posted on Sat, Nov. 21, 2009

550 to lose jobs as Valero Energy shuts Delaware refinery

By Harold Brubaker, Jan Hefler, and Jane M. Von Bergen

Inquirer Staff Writers

Oil-refinery workers on the Delaware River yesterday received their second big blow in six weeks, when Valero Energy Corp. said it would close its operation in Delaware City, Del., casting 550 out of work.

When workers heard the news, “it was like a time bomb went off,” said Matt Edler, who has worked for 10 years at the refinery that rises out of the lowlands near the Delaware River in southern New Castle County.

“My grandfather worked there, my father, and I worked there,” said Edler, who yesterday afternoon joined other shocked refinery workers at Red Lion Inn in Bear, Del. “We were all doing the best we could to keep the place alive. That’s our life.”

The loss of Valero as a provider of high-wage industrial jobs adds to the economic woes in Delaware caused by the recent loss of 2,000 auto-industry jobs at General Motors and Chrysler plants.

Coupled with Sunoco Inc.’s idling of its Eagle Point refinery in West Deptford, Valero’s decision shows the refining industry is under intense pressure, not just from the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, but also from expectations that U.S. gasoline demand will never return to the highs of 2007.

The Delaware City refinery, which Valero bought in 2005, when the industry’s biggest problem was lack of capacity to keep up with soaring demand, was losing an unsustainable $1 million a day this year, the company said.
Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, Rep. Steve Drazkowski and Rep. Tim Kelly (who wasn’t there!) hosted a meeting about CapX 2o2o.

But Rep. Randy Demmer, 29A was.

As one person said, he had a “deer in the headlights” look as he sat in the front of the room.  Did he have any idea what he’d be in for?  I’d talked with him a bit when he came in, and he said he hadn’t heard from many constituents about CapX… oh… OK, well, we can do something about that!  And it’s good he showed up to find out what was going on and hear the word on the streets and in the fields.

Short version of the meeting:

• Bill Glahn gets roasted for MOES “Minnesota_Resource_Assessment” report, which is utter crap, the report, that is… the roasting was well-deserved.

• PUC, Commerce, and DOT show up en mass and toady for process and project.

• Rep. Drazkowski utters words of placation, but did not promote Nov. 4 joint committee hearing on repeal of Minn. Stat. 117.19.  HE’S ON ONE OF THE COMMITTEES, EARTH TO MARS!!!

• Affected landowners don’t buy it,  they get that fundamentally CapX 2020 is not needed and are pissed-off at the crap (see above).

• CapX said they were not going through or around Rochester.

There were two things I let slide, can’t take on everything:

1.Their statements about Big Stone were odd, theywell knows that Big Stone could not interconnect without CapX, and I have the electrical studies which prove it, which after trying 5 times to make it work with a line to nowhere (Granite Falls) then assumed CapX in try #6…   But I also wonder whether CapX Brookings (hence all of CapX) can go forward without Big Stone.

2. They kept saying “this is all about local load” and denying the LaX to Mad line, and kept talking about Rochester as the driver, yet they did not note, of course, the new gas plant at West Side sub or the four 161kV lines that are planned.

Overland’s Scorecard (concept stolen from Deb!):

CapX:     0
PUC:     -5
DOT:       1
Commerce:   -4
The People: +1

Longer version, bigger photo:

The people did a good job of expressing their displeasure and disbelief.

Bill Glahn brought up the Minnesota Resource Assessment Survey!  Bad move…  He  got one of my awards for that Minnesota Resource Assessment Survey, and here’s Maccabee – Presentation to LEC 10/23/09 , another voice saying it’s outrageous.  Last night  Alan Muller got him good about it, told him” it was  an unsatisfactory report, basically just a regurgitation of the business plans of MN… no independent thinking and not in the interests of the citizens of Minnesota …”  Alan does have a way with words.  When asked for a response Glahn looked abashed and admitted that he knows many people are unhappy with it.  AS WELL HE SHOULD!  I mean really… to use as an example that phony “chart” of Steve Rakow’s on p. 6:

… with no ID of meaning of X or Y axis, it’s deceitful, but they pulled that in CapX when faced with decreased demand, entering this chart, then citing its entry in the CapX 2020 Certificate of need record as if it means something.  Oh, pleeeeeeeeze…  We’re way below the 2004 actuals, and this forecast, for the Blue Lake expansion, it’s CapX 2020 era forecasts, we’re about 1,500MW down and growing, down 15% so far, down 2.5% in 1&2Q 2009, SEC 3Q filing and investor call due any second now will take it down further:

After last night’s meeting, Bill Glahn is certainly under fire, but I also got the feeling due to the cadre of state employees stumping for CapX, that it’s their perception that it’s in trouble.  It could be something as simple as they have no financing to do it, that demand is so far down that it makes no sense even to PUC and applicants to build it, or …  The DOT was distancing itself, there’s been a lot of pressure on DOT.  The DOT has its “Policy of Accomodation” (at issue in Chisago Transmission Project III, or IV, the last round, where Xcel stuck poles, BIG poles, right in the middle of the new plan for US Hwy. 8, in one example, right next to and over a business), and here it is:

DOT Policy on Utility Accomodation

…and I don’t think they’re going to change that anytime soon.  At the Legislative Energy Commission meeting in September, there was mention of an October 13 meeting with the DOT, but Dave Sykora, DOT, mentioned that was cancelled, and instead they met last week.  There were no specifics disclosed, but the feeling I got from what was said was that it didn’t go the way legislators wanted it to, DOT didn’t cave.  Legislators are looking, from Rep. Drazkowski’s statements last night, and from Rep. Westrom’s comments at the LEC meeting, for a way to do the project with minimal landowner pain.  I don’t think that’s doable, and it’s sure not desirable.   CapX 2020 is a project that shouldn’t be built, and if it is, it will cause considerable pain, for landowners, applicants and legislators!

Also noteworthy last night was the general failure to accept “need” and a high level of understanding, and for the most part, people are getting the broader picture.  (there was an odd comment by Burl Haar that if there were questions about the appeal of the CapX decision, that they post most things on the docket, and to check with him!).  So is the PUC’s argument that this belongs at the District Court, and not the Appellate Court (despite what Cupit says) on display in the docket for the world to see?  I doubt it, but I’ll check.

Last night, Drazkowski kept referring to efforts to alter the eminent domain law, but he was evasive and didn’t disclose important info, like the upcoming November 4 hearing before Energy & Civil Justice (he’s on Civil Justice!) (Upcoming hearing on repeal of eminent domain exemptions), and he didn’t advise on how to advocate for change, dropped the ball, wouldn’t even pick it up.

Here’s the info on the hearing:

WEDNESDAY, November 4, 2009
10:00 AM
Joint Meeting of the Energy Finance & Policy Division and Civil Justice Committee
Room: 5 State Office Building
Chairs: Rep. Bill Hilty, Rep. Joe Mullery
Agenda: Informational hearing on HF1182 (Bly) Public service corporation exemptions repealed.

Anyone wishing to testify should contact Andy Pomroy at andy.pomroy [at] house.mn
Last night’s meeting in Mazeppa on CapX 2020  follows on the heels of one last Monday night in Chisago, about an 855MW gas plant proposed by LS Power, the Sunrise River Energy Station.  Click here for  Report on Monday Chisago meeting.  They’ve  proposed at least three gas plants before at that site, and they didn’t go far, this is the biggest, and most public, and will need mega transmission, BUT LS Power’s Blake Wheatley admitted at the Chisago meeting that they don’t have a plan, don’t have a PPA, don’t have anything but a tax exemption (est. $9-10 million) from legislators who should have known better than to sell out their constituents for nothing, and then after being caught, for a very small “Host Fee.”  At that meeting, Mike Bull said Xcel won’t need any power for a long time, 2016-2017 (and if he’ll admit that at long last, we know it’s really a lot further out).  As with last night’s meeting, at the Chisago meeting there was, despite heavy lobbying and presence of unions like IBEW and Building & Trades, a clear understanding that the LS Power plant is not needed, and that peak demand is down.  Granted LS Power made the mistake of walking into an energy educated community, but even Bob Cupit was surpirsed by the turnout, said he’d never seen such a large crowd, ~500, standing room only in a hockey rink sized room (Also, FYI, Bob stated to the audience that “If citizens feel the system still failed to consider issues, the decision of the PUC can be appealed to the state Court of Appeals.“)

There is a theme.  Minnesota doesn’t need more transmission, and we won’t, in the words of Xcel’s Mikey Bull, need an generation anytime soon.  Am I paraphrasing correctly, Mike? (Duck & cover — the You Tube of that is forthcoming!!!)  The MOES Minnesota_Resource_Assessment is a crock.

Here are the LEC members — it’d be good to contact all of them, and let them know what you think about “need” for generation and transmission, decreasing demand, and CapX 2020 in particular:

http://www.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/lec/members.htm
Here’s Senate member info:
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/members/index.php?ls=#header
Here’s House member info:
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/hmem.asp

And about CapX and eminent domain, contact:

rep.steve.drazkowski [at] house.mn

rep.tim.kelly [at] house.mn

rep. randy.demmer [at] house.mn

Once more with feeling — Get thee to the House Energy and Judiciary Committee meeting:

WEDNESDAY, November 4, 2009
10:00 AM
Joint Meeting of the Energy Finance & Policy Division and Civil Justice Committee
Room: 5 State Office Building
Chairs: Rep. Bill Hilty, Rep. Joe Mullery
Agenda: Informational hearing on HF1182 (Bly) Public service corporation exemptions repealed.