Mesaba EIS Public Meeting Tuesday
August 20th, 2006
Excelsior now has radio ads on a station in Duluth! The lengths they’ll go to to promote this thing…
Important meeting coming up:
MINNESOTA DEPT. OF COMMERCE PUBLIC MEETINGS ON
MESABA COAL PLANT ENERGY PROJECT
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Taconite Community Center
26 Haynes Street
Taconite, Minnesota
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Hoyt Lakes Arena
102 Kennedy Memorial Drive
Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota
DOC will conduct two public scoping meetings in which agencies, organizations, and the general public is invited to present oral comments or suggestions with regard to the range of alternatives and environmental issues to be considered in the EIS.
Here’s the DoC Comment Notice.
Here’s a Comment form you can use:Â Â eis_comment_form.doc
Comments are due by August 30. Email (click here) or send to:
Bill Storm
Dept. of Commerce
85 – 7th Place E., Suite 500
St. Paul, MNÂ 55101-2198
August 30 is not that far away! Get your comments in today!
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And fresh editorials from the Grand Rapids Herald Review:
 Project will affect people’s health
Editor:
There are times when sacrifices made to promote economic development may be appropriate. However, I am troubled by the massive sacrifices that our elected officials are supporting for the handful of permanent jobs proposed by the Mesaba Energy project. In addition to around 100 permanent jobs (a reduction by 900 since the original proposal) there are other â??developmentsâ? Excelsior Energyâ??s IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) plants will bring if built.
Canisteo Lake will be closed for recreational use and a massive pumping station will operate on the lake to serve the plant. One hundred-forty foot transmission towers will impede on private and public land, forcing landowners off in a controversial use of eminent domain. People will become sick as documented in Excelsiorâ??s own literature. Miles and miles of coal trains will travel through Grand Rapids each week. Snowmobile trails will close or reroute to make room for the plant footprint. One thousand two hundred acres of hunting land will now be off-limits. Carbon dioxide will be pumped into the air, contributing to global warming, along with tons of sulfur dioxide, pounds of mercury, and other particulates that cause asthma and other respiratory problems. Children will be exposed to unsafe levels of electro magnetic fields, putting them at greater risk for childhood leukemia. Groundwater aquifers that supply drinking water to nearby communities are at risk for contamination when Canisteo Lake becomes polluted. Millions upon millions of dollars will be bonded by the county, placing us at financial risk and possibly increasing our property taxes. How will schools, health care facilities, and housing developers deal with the glut and then absence of hundreds of imported construction workers? Hire then fire? Build then abandon?
Our health is our wealth. Development that endangers our personal, environmental, and financial health to this extent is too big a sacrifice for us to take on. We should demand better! The carbon dioxide can be captured in IGCC technology but not in this location. More mercury can be captured than what Excelsior is proposing. Technology exists to prevent water pollution. Local dollars do not have to be used to build infrastructure. My hope is that we can promote economic development in a way that achieves balance and addresses the reality of the future.
Kristen K. Anderson
Bovey
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Editor:
As I read the information provided in the Environmental Supplement for Excelsior Energy’s proposed coal gasification plant I became very angry. How is it that a power plant with a potential to contaminate our wells and the air we breathe could even be considered for this area when no one has demonstrated the need for the electricity and the power would be sent down to the Cities and beyond anyway. Where are the people that were given the responsibility of protecting our health?
If this plant is built in this beautiful area I will have lost all faith in the system, the checks and balance that were designed to protect our quality of life. We should look at the future results of this and keep in mind that this will effect us a lot more then what they are showing or telling us.
Pam Perry
BoveyÂ
Lots of great Mesaba editorials over last two weeks…
June 21st, 2006
Yes, I’ve been SWAMPED, too many of these guys hanging around…
Finally, here they are, Letters to the Editor from the Grand Rapids Herald Review, and it’s worth the time — these are examples of why I’m compelled to work on these issues — THE PEOPLE’S VOICE. I’ve just been having that discussion in another context, about the power of blogs, and blogging is just an extension of what we’ve all been doing for centuries, millenia.. . forever… speaking out — that’s our job!
From today’s Grand Rapids Herald Review:
Wind power is more logical solution
Herald-Review
Editor:I am compelled to write after reading the letter from Kristen Anderson in the Herald-Review, Wednesday, June 14.
Ever since the showing of TV ads touting the production of “clean electricity” from coal, and then there were news stories promoting the funding for the project plus the many letters to the editor regarding the “coal gasification” project, I thought about the eminent pollution possibilities. Kristen certainly did some important research for all of us.
The next thought and question is: Should these Mesaba plants 1 and 2 be built despite popular votes against them? If built, where does the waste go? More particulates and gases into the air? At a time in this century, when scientists tell us that our air is contaminated, do we need to add more contaminants?Since Minnesota has a Renewable Energy Resources Fund, plus Federal Department of Energy and Iron Range Resources millions of dollars, why are we contemplating using the major portion of it for a project that will be used for converting a non-renewable resource into a lot of pollutants, and then electricity. Senseless! Whose hand is in the public’s pocket?
Look at the situation in Hibbing where there is a 10-acre site with an estimated 2 million cubic yards of coal tar containing a wide variety of contaminants. Do we really want that? Wind power is a more logical solution for our world.
Oh, but then, we wouldn’t have the jobs here. According to the statistics that I have read from Kristenâ??s letter and others, those that would be permanent would be the highly technical jobs.
Has anyone ever noticed the wind propeller on Highway 169 South, near the Elk River landfill? It is providing electricity for something. There are sites in Itasca County and elsewhere, which could do the same. Of course, there are the nay sayers. I say, use the Renewable Energy Resource Fund for just that and not for coal. Parts of our county still are recipients of fall-out from the Clay-Boswell plant in spite of their higher stacks.
Dorothy M. Olds
Grand Rapids
Numbers, by Karl Manning
She referred to Kristen’s letter, Kristen Anderson of Trout Lake Township. Here’s her letter from last Wednesday, June 14, 2006, and keep an eye out for Ed’s LTE!
Herald-Review
Editor:
The coal gasification project proposed on the Scenic Highway is a huge, seemingly overwhelming issue to understand. Using information from Excelsior Energy informational meetings, Excelsiorâ??s reports, and public records, it is helpful to view Excelsior Energy â??by the numbersâ?:
600 – Number of permanent jobs originally proposed in 2003 for plant 1 and 2 (Mesaba 1 and 2)
150 – Permanent jobs proposed in 2004 for Mesaba 1
107 – Permanent jobs proposed in 2005 for Mesaba 1
0 – Number of jobs guaranteed by Excelsior Energy
? – Number of actual jobs for 2011(completion date of Mesaba 1)
447 – Tons of sulfur dioxide to be released each year by Mesaba 1
1,227 – Tons of nitrous oxide to be released each year by Mesaba 1
991 – Tons of Carbon Monoxide to be released each year by Mesaba 1
17.9 – Pounds of Mercury to be released each year by Mesaba 1
174 – Tons of particulate matter (PM2.5) to be released annually by Mesaba 1
6 – Number of phases (plants) planned by Excelsior Energy
18,303 – Estimated work loss days per year due to illness caused by Mesaba 1
10+ – Extra miles of train cars going through Grand Rapids each week
345,000 – Voltage of Transmission lines from Mesaba 1 and 2 to Twin Cities
70 – Increased risk percentage of childhood leukemia within 200 yards of high voltage transmission lines
140 – Height (in feet) of transmission line poles for Excelsior Energyâ??s project
0 – Excelsior equity in Mesaba 1 project
9.5 – Million dollars from IRR for Excelsior Energyâ??s project
10 – Million dollars from state Renewable Energy Resource Fund
36 – Million dollars from federal Department of Energy
800 – Million dollars in federal loan guarantees
12 – Million dollars in state bonding for Itasca County infrastructure
0 – Watts produced thus far by Excelsior Energy
0 – Power plants built thus far by Excelsior Energy
9 – Excelsior Energy â??Our Teamâ? employees
15 – Number of lobbyists working for Excelsior Energy
0 – Acres of green space in original legislation
1,000 – Acres of green space required for Scenic Highway site
0 – Demonstrated need for additional energy in northern Minnesota (in watts)
65 – Percentage of votes opposed to Mesaba project in recent Herald-Review Quick PollKristen Anderson
Bovey
Stolen from here
And this one from last weekend’s paper (I can’t figure out if it’s a Saturday or Sunday paper, I think it’s been changing up there…):
Coal project is no fairy tale says reader
Editor:
The Dirty Coal Choo-Chooâ??a bedtime story.
Once upon a time the wise elders of a northern Minnesota community thought, â??Gee, we like railroad trains and we have railroad tracks running right through townâ??how can we get more trains to come through town? Our subjects need to hear the rumble of trains over the tracks, and the blaring of train horns at all hours of the day. And how fun it is to sit and wait for trains to pass and count railroad cars.â?
The wise elders were contacted by powerful people with lots of money and political connections. The powerful people said, â??We can build a power plant that uses lots of dirty coal. And the best way to bring that dirty, yucky coal from far away Wyoming is by stinky diesel locomotives that chug right through your wonderful northern town.â? And the wise elders were thrilled and bowed to the powerful people and said, â??We will help pay for railroad tracks for your dirty coal trains so that our subjects can be happy and see much dirty coal.â?
So the powerful people told the wise elders, â??If you will support our environmentally unfriendly project we will help make your subjects happy.â? The wise elders were assured that each week five trains, each with 115 cars of dirty coal would travel east through town to the powerful peopleâ??s polluting, monster, power plant and each week five empty trains would travel west through town to return to the dirty coal fields to retrieve more dirty coal to fill the dirty coal cars. And the powerful people told the wise elders that each train with dirty coal would be almost one mile long so that the wise eldersâ?? lucky subjects would be able to see 20 miles of trains with dirty coal each week. The powerful people said, â??Oh how happy your subjects will be and you wise elders will be treated like royalty.â?
And the powerful people said, â??Wise elders, if your subjects are really good and obedient people, we will build another polluting, monster, power plant that uses dirty coal and you will have twice as many dirty coal trains for the subjects to watch.â?The wise elders were ecstatic as they thought of the joy they would bring to their obedient subjects. The wise elders thought â??our names will live forever! And maybe the powerful people will even name a car that carries dirty coal after each of us. Such an honor!â?
Fairy tale? Nightmare? There is no â??they lived happily ever after.â? Dirty coal trains are but the tip of the iceberg. Learn more about the dirty coal gasification project and you will find that our wise elders are selling out to the powerful people and planning to degrade the quality of our lives and the environment of northern Minnesota.
John Zasada
Grand Rapids
Darrell White: Jobs at what cost?
May 13th, 2006
Scenic Hwy 7, just west of Mesaba’s preferred site
Grand Rapids Herald-Review
Editor:
I have read a couple of letters in the Herald-Review supporting the coal gasification plant proposed for our area. I have to sympathize with the notion that this area needs “a few good jobs” as does any depressed area, but at what cost? It is no small thing to have your land taken away, or even to have it altered in such a way as to make parts of it unusable or even dangerous.
All the while my wife and I were working in the Twin Cities, we dreamed and planned to spend our “golden years” in the area of my wife’s family in Trout Lake Township, away from pollution and away from the restrictions of city life. When we retired, we thought we had accomplished that dream. We built a log home more than a quarter of a mile from the nearest road.
Now, Excelsior Energy Inc. wants to put a coal gasification plant a short distance upwind from us, a natural gas line up one side of us, and power lines down the other side. The emissions from the plant, according a report to the Utilities Commission, can cause death and respiratory problems. The electromagnetic fields (EMF) from the power lines, in many studies (some of them commissioned by the power companies themselves) have been linked to brain tumors, breast cancer, depression and suicide, Lou Gehrig’s disease, miscarriages, and in children up to 15 years of age, leukemia. Children living 200 meters or less from a power line had a 70 percent increased risk of leukemia. A three-fold increase in spontaneous abortions occurring before the 10th week of pregnancy is associated with even momentary exposure to magnetic fields. In addition to the health problems involved, a study done at St. Cloud University demonstrates that power lines reduces property values. An article in the journal Urban Lawyer concludes power lines reduce property values by up to 14 percent, and backs it up with legal cases.
The arm chair politicians who have nothing to lose healthwise or otherwise can be vocal about this area needing jobs, and can even try to make the people who are being forced to sacrifice the health and way of life of their families sound like a bunch of cry babies, but if the shoe was on the other foot, what then? Would it be worth it for a “few good jobs”?
Darrell White
Bovey