Annual Hearing Tuesday – PPSA
December 7th, 2024
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
The Power Plant Siting Act annual hearing, a la Minn. Stat. 216I.15, is the time to let the Public Utilities Commission know what works and what does not work in the Commission’s siting of power plants, transmission, wind, solar, and even pipelines!
Here’s the problem — all they have to do per the statute is “advise the public of the permits issued by the commission in the past year.” What happens after that, well, it goes to the PUC but that’s about it. It is a good time to vent, and get on the record all the horrible things that have happened over the year, and the historical trends, such as elimination of the Advisory Task Force.
Here’s the decades old law providing for Advisory Task Forces:
And this session, after the Public Utilities Commission and their OAH ALJs were denying, denying, denying after so many Advisory Task Force Petitions over so many years — simply repealed, eliminated:
It’s GONE! And eliminating the reference of Task Forces as an aspect of public participation:
Ja, we “Public Participants” get the PUC’s message loud and clear:
Public participation via the Public Utilities Commission? Remember the Report of the Office of the Legislative Auditor?
Public Utilities Commission’s Public Participation Processes – OLA-Report
Fat lot of good that did. Instead of improving public participation, we hear the Commission Chair saying, “What can we do to make this faster for you?” and “What can we do to speed this permitting up?” and that whole “streamlining” effort, which is really STEAMROLLING. Fast tracking permitting, denial of interventions, failure to have project proponents witnesses at hearings for questioning…
PUC Strategic Plan
Here are the reports from the last 20 years — often they hold it on my birthday, but not this year. You can see that year after year, it’s the same issues:
2006 Report to PUC – Docket 06-1733
2007 Report to PUC – Docket 07-1579
2008 Report to PUC – Docket 08-1426
2009 Report to PUC – Docket 09-1351
2010 Report to PUC – Docket 10-222
2011 Report to PUC – Docket 11-324
2012 Report to PUC – Docket 12-360
2013 Report to PUC – Docket 13-965
2014 Summary Report– Docket 14-887
2015 Summary Report – Docket 15-785
2017 Summary Report – Docket 17-18
2018 Summary Report – Docket 18-18
2019 Summary Report_Docket 19-18
2021 Summary Report – Docket 21-18
2022-Summary-Report_Docket 22-18
And last year’s Report from the 2023 hearing, held on December 20, 2023:
There’s a trend… And here we go, on Tuesday, another year of banging heads against the wall.
Prairie Island Final SEIS is released!
April 27th, 2022
It’s out, the Prairie Island Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, here are the pieces from the Commerce-EERA site. Check it out and register your comments by May 10, 2022:
Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) — Prairie Island Nuclear Plant
- SEIS Text
- Appendix A – Scoping Decision
- Appendix B – Safety of Spent Fuel Storage
- Appendix C – Cask and Canister Handling Processes
- Appendix D – Safety of Spent Fuel Transportation
- Appendix E – Comments on the Draft SEIS and Responses
There doesn’t seem to be a link to a “one stop shopping” pdf of the entire thing.
You can also find the SEIS at the Red Wing Library.
Next steps? Comments on adequacy of the SEIS.
COMMENTS DUE MAY 10, 2022
Freeborn EAW – more time!
January 23rd, 2020

The PUC has asked for additional time, noting that our Petition for EAW for the Freeborn Wind project is expected to come before the Commission on February 6, 2020. PUC asked and PUC received:
Old news on Legalectric:
EQB forwards EAW Petition to PUC
January 3rd, 2020
Petition for EAW – Freeborn Wind
January 2nd, 2020
Commerce “response” to AFCL’s data request
January 14th, 2020

Just in, Commerce-EERA responses to Association of Freeborn County Landowners’ 11/25/2019 Data Practices Act Request:
This was the one we sent trying to get information on a Pre-Construction meeting that we’d not heard anything about, and damned if the meeting didn’t start about half an hour after we sent this request!!! Here’s the response to that 11/25/2019 request:
Some highlights:

Yes, there is that statement again of that “quick, delete those emails” Commerce policy, stated above: “As your request was received on November 25, 2019, unless I have saved an email, emails that I could provide you with would be from August 27, 2019 to November 25, 2019. ” And six times in that missive, “EERA must reiterate that email correspondence prior to August 27, 2019 had been automatically deleted by the Agency’s email system.” Yeah, we get it…
OK, fine, we send Data Practices Act Request every 90 days… we can do that.
And when we request notice of Pre-Construction meetings, after all, after all, we’re a party, have been for years now, yet from PUC’s Kaluzniak’s email about our April 23, 2019 Data Practices Request there’s an inference drawn about AFCL attendance at meetings…

And EERA says about notice to meetings:

FYI – Here’s Xcel’s Summary of the 11/25/2019 Pre-Construction meeting that no one told us about, filed December 6, 2019:
That same day, just before that Xcel filing and almost 2 weeks after getting confirmation of our 11-25-2019 Data Practices Request from the Data gurus at both PUC and Commerce, this arrives from Rich Davis… can you spell “oppositional” anyone?

Yeah, it’s just more of the “Davis Shuffle.” Save, document, wait… we’re already sitting at the Court of Appeals, and we’re waiting for PUC to address our EAW Petition. Just keep it up…
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION ANYONE?
Minn. Stat. 216E.08
Subd. 2. Other public participation.The commission shall adopt broad spectrum citizen participationas a principal of operation. The form of public participation shall not be limited to public hearings andadvisory task forces and shall be consistent with the commission’s rules and guidelines as provided for insection 216E.16.
EQB forwards EAW Petition to PUC
January 3rd, 2020

The Environmental Quality Board has forwarded Association of Freeborn Landowners’ Petition for Environmental Assessment Worksheet to the Public Utilities Commission. YES!
They zipped it, listed as “FreebornWind.zip” on the ftp site (ftp://files.pca.state.mn.us/pub/tmp).
Next step – the PUC needs to determine whether an EAW is necessary, the transmittal letter lays out the process. In the meantime:

Onward. Potential for Environental review of a wind project in Minnesota — what a concept!