Legalectric

There’s been some chatter lately about the financial future of Red Wing if and when the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant closes.

FYI, for those thinking about this, do check out the plan to convert to natural gas, this was in NSP’s 2002 IRP, just going into the 2003 session and that Prairie Island bill.

Prairie Island Conversion Appendix B 2002 Resource Plan

There’s also a MISO transmission study:

Prairie Island Replacement Study SS01_Report

There are plans…  This is not a binary all or nothing situation!

My Letter to the Editor about misguided and ill-advised Ordinance #115 is in the RW Republican Eagle (bEagle), it’s posted below because it’s not online yet.

UPDATE: Posted online — Ordinance is ‘solution’ looking for a problem

NOTE: ORDINANCE #115 TAKEN OFF DECEMBER 11 COUNCIL MEETING. WON’T BE HEARD UNTIL AFTER JANUARY COUNCIL ANNUAL WORKSHOP… if ever…

Here’s a previous post on the Ordinance and the Council meeting:

Ordinance #115 – disruptions at Council meetings?

Monday night, the Council took up Ordinance #115, triggered by the recent Minnesota Supreme Court’s Hensel decision. That decision held that the law defining conduct that “disturbs an assembly or meeting, not unlawful in its character” as disorderly conduct was unconstitutional, “a serious overbreadth problem.” Here, the City has decided to consider an ordinance of its own with language that puts the City on the wrong side of the law. Why would the City want to do this?

The discussion was good – I’m grateful members raised Constitutional issues, the 1^st Amendment, and its broad definitions. One said “We’d instructed staff after we got information,” the City Attorney had been instructed to draft the ordinance. “We were asked to address this.” By whom? It’s not gone through committee process. The packet’s item 9B was a memo from Roger Pohlman, Chief of Police, requesting a Motion to introduce the Ordinance.  Councilor Hove noted that there haven’t been disruptions for years, since back when the Council met upstairs! Others, including the City Attorney, noted that in addition to city policy, there is applicable law. Only part of the disorderly conduct statute (Minn. Stat. 609.72) was held unconstitutional, and parts remain, including “engages in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others.”

Why use Council time on this non-issue, particularly where the City has policies in place regarding disruption? What was most concerning were Chief Pohlman’s reasons for requesting this ordinance.  First, he noted that police use of force practices limit what level of force may be used, and “if individual becomes passive, resistant” this ordinance was back up to use force to remove someone. He raised this issue of level of force twice. The other claimed justification was liability issues if someone claims injury when removed, that it’s “difficult to use policy to support our case.” This is an issue?

As Alan Muller was quoted in your article, “people disrupt meetings — people behave aggressively — when they feel that behaving politely and with restraint isn’t working.” Council President Biese cut off Muller’s statement just as he was finishing!  In my own experience, I’ve been shushed by Biese for objecting when my Ash Mining clients had no opportunity to speak before the Council approved that scheme. I’ve also been ordered removed from a St. Croix Falls/Taylors Falls joint Council meeting by then Mayor Lundgren for merely asking a question, raising a financial corruption issue, in a public comment period.  Lundgren was later charged and plead guilty to Theft and Misconduct in Office. Sometimes being heard requires standing up.

A primary outcome of the Red Wing Citizens Assembly was recognition that the City Council needs to be welcoming, transparent, that the Council must listen to citizens, and welcome public engagement. Ordinance #115 is a visible step in the opposite direction

Carol A. Overland

Also worth noting is the Editorial in the same paper, encouraging people to write — YES!

Column: Letters should make you question and think

The Tyler Hills Neighbors have filed comments on the MPCA’s Findings of Facts, Conclusions of Law and Order for Negative Declaration on Need for an Environmental Impact Statement:

Comments – Tyler Hills Neighbors_4-12-2017

Here’s the MPCA’s Findings of Facts, Conclusions of Law and Order for Negative Declaration on Need for an Environmental Impact Statement:

Lab USA FOF (MPCA Final)

Why file anything?  Well, there are three major problems:

1. The MPCA states that French Island ash isn’t in the landfill, isn’t being dumped there!
2. Their delineation of the Water Tank Mounds is way off.
3. The project proposer changed the plan because there was a leachate issue, but now that they’re collecting the leachate it needs to be dumped back into the landfill to utilize the landfill leachate system.

This isn’t rocket science folks — how can you be so off on these things?

Some have said that the Renewable Development Fund is sacred.  WRONG.  The Renewable Development Fund is profane, not sacred, all the way from its origins to its uses.  It’s now under scrutiny at Minnesota legislature, and institutional memory is nowhere to be found in this discussion.  See HF 235 and SF 214.

The Renewable Development Fund (RDF) came into being in the 1994 Prairie Island bill, and was to be a per cask compensation fund for the Prairie Island Indian Community for storage of nuclear waste next door and extension of Prairie Island nuclear plant life.  That compensation was turned into the RDF in a late night deal by “environmental” groups lobbying, of which Bill Grant (now Deputy Commissioner, Dept. of Commerce, formerly and then Izaak Walton League) was an integral part, Michael Noble (ME3, now “Fresh Energy”), and George Crocker (North American Water Office) too.  Prairie Island Indian Community was supposed to get priority in grants, but that never happened.  The RDF was administered by 3 from Xcel, plus Bill Grant, and one other “environmental” rep.  The composition of the group giving out the grants has changed, and there is now someone from PI on it, but that’s recent. (Full Disclosure: I represented Florence Twp. fighting the “in Goodhue County” alternate site mandate for nuclear waste and the Township worked very mindful of, and often in tandem with, PIIC, where it fiercely refused to acquiesce to Xcel and say “STICK IT THERE” to PIIC.  The working relationship continues and PIIC is now largest private  landowner in Florence Twp.).

1994 Prairie Island bill — Ch. 641, MN Session Laws (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?year=1994&type=0&doctype=Chapter&id=641).

The RDF was a material term of the 2003 Prairie Island bill, where as part of the deal millions of RDF money was to go to the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project.  Bill Grant was primary again, and when the Mesaba Project was stricken in one House session, a red-faced Tom Micheletti came flying down the hall yelling at Grant “We had a deal, we had a deal!” That deal was later added back in, and Micheletti’s Excelsior Energy coal gasification plant, Mesaba Project, was added to the factors to keep PI open.  “Environmental groups” got massive grants to promote coal gasification.  Micheletti got $10-12 million from RDF for Mesaba (and lots more from IRRB and DOE) and other regulator perks in the 2003 law, like exemption from CoN, and a mandated PPA with Xcel.  (Full Disclosure: I represented MNcoalgasplant.com against Mesaba Project, and with CAMP and help from Xcel, we got the details of coal gasification, that project was killed, and the info killed others nationwide, but Mesaba still has a site permit in Taconite from PUC valid until 2019!)

2003 Prairie Island bill – Ch. 11, MN Session Laws (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?year=2003&type=1&doctype=Chapter&id=11) 

On Monday, January 23, the Red Wing City Council voted to accept a $2 million grant from RDF to install a garbage grinder, a project they’ve been lobbying for for years, where they’ll take in garbage from the whole county, grind it up, and burn it in Xcel’s garbage burner here, its air permit expired in 2009!  GARBAGE!!!  DOH!  GARBAGE is not clean, it’s toxic!  The purpose of all this is to keep the incinerators open and burning.  (Full Disclosure:  I have been representing clients being screwed by Xcel’s plan for “ash mining” in their incinerator ash landfill in Red Wing, part of which includes a plan to build a Red Wing laydown yard and crusher on a site half of which is designated Water Tower Burial Mounds — yeah, really. That’s been exposed:

My partner, Alan Muller, is an incineration expert and has worked with groups to stop RockTenn; Midtown Burner in Phillips, Rockford City and Township; HERC uprate, etc.  See the Tyler Hills Neighbors Comments: Comment Extension for Lab USA EAW & Xcel & Lab USA Solid Waste)

The RDF has been a slush fund for deals enabling nuclear, promoting coal gasification, and greasing the skids for scams of great financial and environmental magnitude and impact.  It should be shut down and turned over to Prairie Island Indian Community as originally intended.