Legalectric

Yesterday was the DFL State Convention, and it was a long, long day on not enough sleep.  I distinctly recall seeing the clock a little after 1 a.m., and the 6:45 a.m.alarm never went off.  A Convention is right up there with a root canal (which I WON’T do), so with all due haste I got my butt into the van and headed north.  Orchestra Hall?   I haven’t been there since Dexter Gordon, so you know how long ago that was!

Amid divisions, DFL leaders target Trump at state convention

Registration was an exercise in planning ineptness.  They ran out of registration forms.  Sound familiar?  Yeah, it’s like running out of ballots!  There is a set number of delegates and alternates, so why were there not sufficient registration forms?  I found one laying on a table, SCORE!

At registration, there’s a “voluntary” fee of $50 when pre-registered, and $65 at the door, but given how the party is pushing Hillary despite the state’s Sanders win, no, I’m not about to give the DFL money — Bernie gets my donations.  And so after winding through a long, long amorphous line, I finally got to the front of the line, said, “I’m here and I’m broke (I did have $1 and some change in my pocket)” and she said, “That’s OK, we love you anyway” with such sincerity!  Her attitude was a day brightener!

After registering, we had to go over to a different alphabetical section to pick up our credentials, and that was another YUGE line, well, many YUGE lines, and the good news was that the letters didn’t mean anything, we could jump to an open line.  I got registered, got my credentials, and got to the “Alternates” balcony (Alternates are not allowed on floor).  I later heard from others there were not enough blue bags with convention materials.  The Alternates section was up in the balcony… not long after I arrived, I was shuttled further up, to the THIRD FLOOR balcony, the second tier balcony, way, way up in the nosebleed section.

I sat through a few speeches, and jumped right on Gov. Dayton and Sen. Klobuchar when they brought up Hillary.  BOO HISS!  Why raise their support of the LOSER in Minnesota?  They should know better when the state went for Sanders by a landslide, 61.6% to 38.4%, with Bernie winning in every Congressional District:

Both Gov. Dayton and Sen. Klobuchar chose to bring up their support for Hillary, and they got the response they deserved, and then had the nerve to plea for “party unity” that followed their Hillary support.  Oh, please…  Their choice to be divisive and ignore the landslide support of Sanders in Minnesota could have, should have, been different.  Bad choice.  SHAME!  A few rounds of BOO-HISS is fully appropriate.  And for them to then pile on with “we need unity,” give it a rest.  They chose their divisive promotion.

There were co-chairs in charge.  O’Brien as a chair appeared at times unsure, confused and maneuvering/directing the process, but also not firm enough with the group and from my perspective, making some bad calls.  Melvin Carter was more direct and firm, pushing the process along.  It was so slow…

Just as I was getting ready to leave after a couple hours of these speeches that were so manipulative, I got word that I was being “upgraded” and to get ready to be a delegate and be seated with the Goodhue County group in the front row.  Another point of disorganization, we were assigned 7 seats for 9 delegates.  WTF?  This was a common problem raised by others that day, seats were assigned and there were not enough assigned seats.  They know how many delegates are allotted, so why this crap?

SNORT of the day:  When St. Paul’s mayor was introduced, and we were urged to welcome him, the captioning said, “POLICE WELCOME ST. PAUL MAYOR CHRIS COLEMAN.”  Really… after the 2008 RNC, no surprise there!

There was a Motion for “A Sense of the Convention” or some such, which had two parts, first, that the superdelegate system should be scrapped/reformed, and second, that at the 2016 national convention, the superdelegates should not vote or should vote according to MN caucus results:

This received a resounding YES! in proportion to Bernie v. Hillary supporters.  It took quite a while to get to the vote, and recount, but finally, YES!  Hope that will be heard by the superdelegates.

Most notably, there were not enough copies of the Resolutions on which we were supposed to vote. When voting time came, there was a call from the chair for people to pass on their copies to those who didn’t have them.  Sharing is good, but copies of documents we’re voting on is a pretty basic need and they should have been prepared.  The number of delegates is known, alternates didn’t get the bag of materials, so why were there not enough? And in the email to us, they could have told us to print them out and saved on copies by asking if we needed copies at registration.  Then it gets worse, “some” resolutions were taken off the ballot after the resolution ballot was sent pre-convention and after they were printed for convention packets, and somehow referred to the Central Committee!  Which ones?  Well, no one was saying, and it took repeated pushes to get that info.  What bullshit.  What resolutions were they?  24, 32, 41, 54, and 60!  Numbers only.  Great… What were they?

24. Support legislation (such as tax credits, loan forgiveness programs, and refinancing) to reduce Minnesota’s student loan debt.

32. Support legislation that requires all crude oil pipelines transiting Minnesota to have Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), to have financial assurances for spill and abandonment cleanup, and respect sovereign native territory.

41. Support health care as a basic right for everyone in our society, and take steps to ensure that everyone is able to receive a niminum level of health care including physical, mental and dental care.

54. Oppose sulfide ore mining, which is significantly different from taconite mining, poses unacceptable environmental risks, threatens multiple watersheds (Lake uperior, BWCA/VNP, Mississippi) and should not be allowed in the sulfur bearing rock of Minnesota.

60. Oppose fracking because of its damage to the environment and the resulting burden on future generations.

Interesting combo there…  This finagling is a problem.

Then, when it was time to vote on delegates to the DNC Convention in Philly, the set up at Orchestra Hall was poor.  What were they thinking?  On the other hand, SNORT, as reported in the STrib:

To elect national delegates, Bernie Sanders supporters remained in Orchestra Hall and Hillary supporters were herded into a smaller room without chairs. They were grumpy about it.

For the Sanders delegate elections, it took a while to get a moderator, but moderating was handled well.  First, there was no procedure or a complete list of those who were running.  WHAT?  So that had to be established…

And then we started with a poor play by Sanders crew — they proposed a slate of 10 delegates, and 2 of them weren’t even present!  Oh my… bad move.  And that was soundly rejected.  We did get the 8 of them onstage, but at that time, we didn’t even get any info about them other than their names.  No one who doesn’t show should be allowed to be a national delegate.  The group soundly rejected this slate (who all were allowed to be part of the following delegate cattle call).  I hope the campaign got the message, though I’ll send them one directly too.

For the potential national Bernie delegates, there would be 9 women and 7 men, and 4 alternates.  For applicants, there was only a sheet from THURSDAY (!?), on a Saturday, in teeny tiny print with just under 200 names, and many more applied after Thursday, so for sure over 200 were wanting to be national delegates. That’s a lot!  Essentially, 10% of those who wanted to be a delegate would be selected.

After spending at least an hour, maybe two, nailing down the delegate selection process, we had a parade of delegates.  This was the best part of the day.  The parade of delegates was the most diverse, devoted, dedicated bunch ever.  Some were brand new to voting and politics, some were grizzled old farts, some were long-time dedicated party workers, some wore suits, some wore shorts (“I’m the short guy in shorts!” said one), some Native, some first generation immigrants, some new to Minnesota from other states, some L or B or G or T or some mix of identification, some small business owners, some disabled, some union members (Teamster & Stagehands 13), some urban, some suburban, some rural, some students, like wow!  Their allotted 30 second elevator speeches were great, inspiring.  THIS is what DEMOCRACY looks like.  This group was Minnesota, the essence of our state, and made me so proud to be Minnesotan and part of this Convention.  I can’t say enough good things about this group of Bernie supporters.  Looking forward to hearing who all was selected.  Oh, here’s the list:

1. Muhammad Abdurrahman
2. Gabe Aderhold
3. Michael Gibino
4. John Neitge
5. Frank Hornstein
6. Keith McClain
7. Will Moore
A1. Michael Bearfoot
A2. Jacob Mazurek

1. Yishu Dài
2. Mara Glubka
3. Shakia McDavid
4. Erika Onsrud
5. Shauna Kaylene Wimmer Valdez
6. Margaret Breen
7. Nelsie Yang
8. Lisa Bender
9. Ashley Fairbanks
A1. Fartun Weli
A2. Susan Wolfe

From KOIN TV

Also from KOIN TV

It’s happened again, this time on the other end of the country, in Oregon in the Columbia Gorge, near the river and near homes in Mosier, OR, where the derailment occurred.  Oil has leaked, exploded in flames, and at least 8-10 cars are derailed.

Oregon train derailment spills oil, sparks fire

Oil train derails, on fire in Columbia River Gorge

Oil train derails near Mosier, Oregon, smoke visible for miles

Oil train derailment, fire in Columbia Gorge evacuates Mosier schools, I-84 shut down

50 years ago, on a family vacation, we went to Ft. Peck, stayed at Hell Creek State Park, which more than lived up to its name then, with miles and miles of nothingness, except for the Park Ranger and his trusty pup.  He’d spent his day shooting rattlesnakes, he had a bagfull of them, and showed them to us, advising that we keep an eye open!  The coolest, and hottest, camping experience ever.  So of course I’ve wanted to go back, and this is the perfect time.  It’s cool at night, and it had rained the night before, and it was SO green, blinding, and not at all like the desolate wasteland I’d remembered.  Same spot 50 years later… (how did THAT happen?)

The park is in a pickle, seems there’s no money available for needed improvements, like a single phase line that’s at capacity (AACK, just found a tick!  Now it’s a dead tick!), septic over capacity, and tens of thousands of folks come there to fish. They put together a “Master Plan” but it wasn’t clear the purpose, and instead of being a Master Plan, I think it was a way to set out the issues facing the Park and to try to figure out what to do about it.

Hell Creek State Park (Montana) – Comments due 11/25

I don’t get it, it’s a foreign world to me.  Everyone there had a big honkin’ pick up truck, and a 5th wheel and towing a big boat that probably cost more than my house!  And if they didn’t have the three part rig, they pulled a YUGE trailer and a friend pulled the YUGE fishing boat.  To get there, it’s a 26 mile drive over washboard gravel, with so much dust that I don’t know if it will ever come out of the van.  Washing it might induce a mudslide!

Not all that far away in miles, but a trip out and back over that long dirt road, is the Ft. Peck dam and power house, and so of course I called up and arranged a tour.  Very cool, but no photos allowed.  I recognized the museum, the first part of the tour, from 50 years ago, back in the days when we took family “utility infrastructure” trips.  And guess who worked on the dam?

There are two power houses, one, the oldest, with three turbines and a 105 nameplate capacity, and two in power house #2, which have a 80 MW capacity.  One of the turbines in unit 1 is being replaced, is much smaller, but will be much more efficient and have a higher capacity.

Ft. Peck is the largest earthen dam in the world!  The Army Corps built a handful of dams on the Missouri, Ft. Peck, Tarrison (400 MW)(where we are now), Oahe (595 MW), Big Bend (468 M), Ft. Randall (320 MW), and Gavins Point (100 MW).  Most of these are probably overdue for serious rehab.

Between all of these dams, there’s some serious power generation going on, but there’s also a problem with low water levels, putting generation at risk and requiring a FERC docket to address allocation.  And of course, I was wondering where they sell the power, and it’s operated by the Army Corps to this day, and power is sold through the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Power Marketing Area and Western Area Power Authority (WAPA).  Dispatch is supposed to happen out of a complex in Watertown, SD.  Transmission out of Ft. Peck runs mostly east, but some to the west!  From Ft. Peck, there are two 115kV lines, one 230 kV line, one 161 kV line, one 69 kV line, and one 34.5 kV line.  Of the big collection of dams, there’s a transmission network moving the energy around:

Little is said about the impact of the flooding on the Assiniboine Nation, which met Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 6, 1934, to address those issues when he came out to cheer on the construction efforts.  Now there’s “Ft. Peck” Reservation, north and east of the dam.  The impacts of flooding on First Nations was part of the FERC docket regarding allocation, because a decrease in output and change in allocation will likely have an impact on local residents:

PICK-SLOAN MISSOURI BASIN PROGRAM Eastern …

From the “Answers” to comments, it seems FERC didn’t see it the same way:

DOE WAPA_2011-29601

And now we’re on to our second dam of the trip, Garrison Dam, and Ft. (not Grant) Stevenson, which has a great campground.  Very nice, though sites are too close together.  And once again, everyone has these huge rigs, some crammed in 3 to a space, circling the wagons, with a big campfire in the middle where they all hang out.  I can’t help but snort, because many don’t know how to back up!!!  There oughtta e a law, can’t back up — can’t go forward.  And campgrounds accommodate these sorts of folks by making half the sites pull-throughs.

So anyway, on to the Soudan Mine and neutrino lab.  How much fun can I stand?

Be there or be square — transmission open houses in eastern Iowa near Dubuque and southwestern Wisconsin near Cassville.

Monday, May 16 –
Peosta Community Center
7896 Burds Road
Peosta, IA 52068

Tuesday, May 17 –
Pioneer Lanes
1185 US (Business) 151
Platteville, WI 53818

Wednesday, May 18 –
Deer Valley Lodge
401 West Industrial Drive
Barneveld, WI 53507

Thursday, May 19 –
Deer Valley Lodge
401 West Industrial Drive
Barneveld, WI 53507

Where’s Art Hughes when you need him??

Art Hughes has died…  March 31st, 2009

Days before he died, Art Hughes was testifying in Peosta against an ITC transmission line heading east to Peosta, here’s the photo from that hearing, and the article about it is in the “Art Hughes has died…” link above.

And now they’re doing another round of open houses, yesterday in Peosta, IA.  Wherefore Art thou?  Well, Art, where are you?  I guess they remember him, because this time it’s “open house” and not a meeting/hearing.  These “open houses” are held by ATC, ITC, and Dairyland about its plan for the Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Project.  This project is the southern part of the “5” project on the MISO MVP project map below, from the Hickory Creek substation (near Dubuque) to the Cardinal substation (near Madison)(the northern part of 5 is the Xcel/ATC Badger Coulee line).  It’s one of the transmission lines that fills in the 345 kV transmission gaps to enable North & South Dakota to Chicago bulk power transfer.

Once more with feeling: Open House Schedule — each starts at 4 p.m. and goes until 7 p.m. (hello, ITC, it’s planting season, how convenient!):

A shindig has been announced, at which Xcel Energy will unveil its plans, the options it has deemed “alternatives” to the Hollydale Transmission Project.

Xcel Energy’s Hollydale “Open House”

May 25, 2016 from 12-2 p.m. and 4-7 p.m.

Medina Ballroom

500 Highway 55

Medina, Minnesota

Heard some time ago that this was in the works, and made a scheduling request, overtly received with intent to schedule around time I could not attend… well, so much for that.  Gee, thanks, folks!  PPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFBT!

Now, on to the Hollydale Transmission Project.  This is the project that Xcel withdrew, because it was apparent that it wasn’t needed… well, Xcel would never admit that, but it was going down in flames:

Xcel and Great River pull the plug on Hollydale applications

This is a project that was first applied for in 2011, 5 years ago!  That project was a plan to run a 115 kV transmission line through Plymouth and Medina to a substation way to the west, when the “problem” was increased demand along 694 and Hwy. 55.  DOH!  What’s not to object to!  Here’s what they’d originally proposed:

So after the project was withdrawn, without prejudice (they can re apply), they embarked on a “study” to determine options.  That was so long ago…

For ages, they’ve been saying they’re working on this report, and have been saying “it’s not finalized” (this is NOT rocket science, it’s only engineering and transmission planning and PR spin, what takes so long?  I guess it takes this long to come up with justifications and twist the data to make it look reasonable and needed?).

Compliance Filing_July 2015_20157-112044-01

Compliance Filing_April2016_20164-119743-01

From that April Compliance Filing, here’s their plan for this meeting:

It would help to be able to review the “study.”  So I left a message with Xcel Energy at 612-330-6644, the number provided on the meeting notice (no name, but I presumed Tom Hillstrom is still in charge of this) asking for the study.  Because I got voicemail, I also called the attorney assigned to this:

No “little birdie” here, and something’s fishy — no “study” is forthcoming to study because “it is not finalized yet.”  Sent an email to Plymouth@xcelenergy.com with the same request.  Oh please… it has been YEARS!  Pretty tough to argue for any of your “options” when you don’t have anything to back it up!

My clients are on the Medina end of this, and each project blurb notes that “The existing 69 kV transmission line west of the Hollydale Substation will remain unchanged on all three of these alternatives”

Here’s the three they’re proposing:

View Alternative A Map (PDF)

View Alternative B Map (PDF)

View Alternative C Map (PDF)

Alternative C what looks to be the worst one of the three — to energize the existing 69 kV line through this Plymouth subdivision, much of which is directly over a walkway/bike path:

View Alternative C Map (PDF)

And once more with feeling, Xcel says that “The existing 69 kV transmission line west of the Hollydale Substation will remain unchanged on all three of these alternatives.”  GOOD!  But… will that hold true for the foreseeable future?  What’s the “Long Term Conceptual Plan” on the maps?  That’s why I want to see this study, because past experience with Xcel Energy is that once they propose something, they work it until they get it, one way or another.

From the Xcel “Plymouth Project” site: