Legalectric

Freeborn Wind permit (and standard language in all permits) has noise limits, the state standard (Minn. R. 7030.0040) and permit condition limits:

Xcel’s conslutant’s noise monitoring report (2 parts):

And then Commerce-EERA wants to review and “analyze” it and here’s the result, released yesterday:

Despite documented noise exceedences, they craft it to this result:

… sigh… it starts out promising:

What it looks like is that the measurements of noise monitoring aren’t taken seriously, and that “binning” is used to obfuscate and dismiss testing and monitoring results that show noise levels above those permitted.

Remember the ALJ’s recommendation for this project, that the permit be denied because Freeborn had not demonstrated it could comply with noise standards?

OAH+80-2500-34633+Final+Order

WE WON!!! ALJ Recommend Freeborn Permit be DENIED, or… May 14th, 2018

And then the PUC bends over and gives Freeborn/Xcel what it wants:

Freeborn? PUC upends ALJ’s Freeborn Wind Recommendation September 21st, 2018

To challenge this, hiring a noise expert is necessary, and then it’s time to sue their collective asses. It becomes the responsibility of those affected by the wind project’s incursion on their land to raise the objections and foot the bill. Fair? Equity? Justice? In what world…

Dorenne Hansen died this morning, and we’re mourning.

A visitation will be held from 4:00-7:00 p.m. on Friday, May 21, 2021 at Bonnerup Funeral Service, Albert Lea, and one hour prior to services at the church. A funeral service will take place at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 22, 2021 at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Myrtle with Pastor Josh Blair officiating. Interment will follow at Pilgrim’s Rest Cemetery. A celebration of life meal will be held at the Glenville City Hall following committal services.

She was a founder and the very life of Association of Freeborn County Landowners. When we met, she let me know that she had been living with Stage 4 cancer for a while, that was June, 2017, and she’d said that she was on some sort of trial, the longest living person in the medical world. She was a delight, off the charts brilliant, strong, exacting, and angry and a fighter in the best of ways.

Dorenne was able to motivate and turn out her community, with neighbors meeting and coming together to foil the intruder to their neighborhood.

Dorenne was a little hesitant at first, and after a few rounds with Invenergy and the Public Utilities Commission, she got in the groove, was adept at reading between the lines, and channeled her outrage into action, rallying the troops for yet another round.

Dorenne Hansen was the voice of AFCL.

Association of Freeborn Landowners got the first ever contested case for siting a wind project, and in another first, the ALJ recommended the project’s permit be denied:

No small feat!! In the STrib’s article then, on both Freeborn Wind and the Bent Tree project, wind developers and wind promoters were histrionic:

Administrative Law Judge says PUC should reject Freeborn County wind project

A choice snippet from Litchfield in the STrib article:

Dan Litchfield, an Invenergy senior manager, objected to Schlatter’s interpretation of Minnesota’s noise regulations, saying it “is impossible to meet for a wind farm. … Every other wind farm in the state has not been subject to this interpretation.”

And what did the PUC do??

Freeborn? PUC upends ALJ’s Freeborn Wind Recommendation

Marie McNamara, who has been through the PUC grist mill with Goodhue Wind Truth, put it well:

Despite getting the site permit, Freeborn Wind did move 17 of the 41 turbines to Iowa, a different sort of success, 24 shy of our goal. Yet after that initial administrative win, followed by the PUC’s 180, it was downhill from there. The last gasp of our efforts came last month:

Freeborn Wind appeal – we lose…

And then NSP/Xcel tries to send us a bill, adding insult to injury — our Objection is here:

Xcel, cost taxation? WHAT?

Throughout all these very intense years, Dorenne was undergoing routine chemo treatments, on and off and on and off, with time to recover some in between, and she was often literally working on our Freeborn Wind project while infusing! We spent a lot of time at the library bonding over transcripts, zzzzzzzzzzzzz. And Myre-Big Island State Park was right next door, so a good place to have confabs and convenient for hearings in Albert Lea.

Dorenne and I last talked not long before the appeal came down, and she was getting ready to stop chemo, which because the cancer had progressed, was on a weekly basis, utter torture with no respite between treatments. She was not having fun, her quality of life was nil, and she was ready to stop chemo, though she was so mindful of her family and friends whom she cared about and who cared so much about her. I appreciated her advance notice and a chance to let her know how much I appreciated and enjoyed and leaned on her.

Over the last four years, people in the community who had not met before got together, worked together, and became fast friends over wind turbines, becoming large parts of each others lives. Dorenne, you will be sorely missed. What an impact you’ve had… what a life well lived…

Here’s the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission “deliberating” and deciding to DENY our Petition for Environmental Assessment Worksheet. What a concept, environmental review of a wind project. It’s never happened in Minnesota, and 2,500+ MW of wind sited, sans wind specific criteria and rules. DOH!! PUC has actual and constructive notice that there are noise problems with wind. Another DOH!

Oh, look out, now that I’ve learned how to clip snippets from videos, there’s no stopping me!!

This is the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission’s deliberation and decision from December 19, 2019, on Xcel/NSP (they never use the name consistently) Application for Amendment of the Freeborn Wind Project site permit: