December 7 – Red Wing Ash Mine Open House
December 1st, 2016
There’s a plan afoot here in Red Wing that strikes me as one of the more bizarre ideas, particularly given the subsidy the City of Red Wing is giving to Xcel Energy by leasing land from Xcel Energy for the term of Xcel’s own “ash mining” project and about 10 years beyond. WHAT?
On Monday, the Pollution Control Agency will release the EAW and you’ll be able to find it HERE AT THIS LINK.
This PR blurb was issued recently by the Red Wing Chamber of Commerce, in support of the project:
Community Meeting to Share Information About Proposed Project to Process Ash and Recycle Metals from Xcel Energy’s Red Wing RDF Landfill – December 7 | 5PM-7PM | Red Wing Public Library.Please join Lab USA and the City of Red Wing for a community meeting to learn more about a potential project that would process ash and recycle metals from Xcel Energy’s RDF landfill in Red Wing. Lab USA has proposed to build, own, and operate an environmentally-responsible ash processing facility that would be located next to the existing Xcel RDF landfill in Red Wing. The project will recover and recycle high quantities of iron and non-iron metals from ash in the landfill that was created by Xcel Energy’s Red Wing Generating Plant and from existing ash at Xcel Energy’s RDF landfill.The community meeting is another step in Lab USA’s ongoing work to secure permits and approvals and to reach out to the Red Wing community.
* Lab USA has completed a voluntary Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) that shows the project will comply with rules and regulations related to noise, emissions, and other impacts.
* People from Lab USA, Xcel Energy, and the City of Red Wing will be at the meeting to answer questions and talk about the project, how the ash processing works, and how this project can benefit Red Wing.
This project is also a unique way for Red Wing to take its commitment to sustainable environmental stewardship to a new level by creating both economic and environmental benefits for City of Red. It will remove and recycle metals from the landfill, generate new revenue for the city, and create jobs as the project moves forward.The meeting will also include a chance to learn more about EAW for the project and to share comments and feedback with Lab USA and the City of Red Wing. The public comment period for the EAW begins December 5th. The Red Wing City Council is expected to vote to approve the project in February of 2017. For more information please contact labusaredwing@gmail.com
To be clear, the Monday meeting is hosted by Lab USA and is an “open house” format and is not a formal hearing. The public comment period is for 30 days, until January 4, and I’l publish details on where to send the comments after the Notice is issued. After January 4, 2017, there will be a determination of whether an Environmental Impact Statement is necessary, and remember, in recent history, the MPCA Board has only ordered ONE EIS, and after that one EIS, the MPCA Citizens Board was unceremoniously disbanded! The odds of a declaration that an EIS is needed are zilch, zip, nada, ZERO.
The EAW will be released on Monday, FIND IT HERE, per Dan Card at the MPCA:
Kevin Kain is the environmental review project manager for the proposed Lab USA project.
The reason you couldn’t find the EAW on our website is because it hasn’t been placed on public notice yet. That will occur next Monday Dec 5, 2016 which starts the 30 day public comment period. You will find EAW posted next Monday at the bottom of https://www.pca.state.mn.us/quick-links/environmental-assessment-worksheets-and-environmental-impact-statements under Environmental Assessment Worksheets.
The company will be hosting an Open House and Kevin along with other solid waste permitting staff plan on attending.
What’s the deal?
Here are the documents I have, in chronological order for the most part, some are duplicates produced for the procedural step that followed:
- 8c2 – attachment – 11-09-15workshopminutes
- January-28-2016-storm water design material storage laydown area 9b – attachment
- 07- Public Works Maintenance Yard CUP – APC 3-15-16 (contains application)
- 06- Minutes – APC 3-15-2016_approved 4-19-16
- 09c1 Xcel Lease Agreement CC 04-25-2016
- 09c2-LabUSA Letter CC 04-25-2016
- April 25, 2016 CC Minutes
- May 9, 2016 CC Minutes
- May 9, 2016_9b – attachment (see January 28, above)
- 12- Status Report APC 5-17-16
So what is this, the short version?? It’s a plan to “mine” the incinerator ash in the City of Red Wing landfill. There’s a link to formally closing the dump, and I think that by doing this, the city takes a step toward that formal closure, one pushed by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. But mining the ash? The plan is for the City of Red Wing to hire a company, Lab USA, to “mine” the ash and remove salable materials from it.
Now here’s where it gets really weird. The City of Red Wing’s planned part of this project lasts one year. Xcel Energy, which has its own incinerator dump here, plans to do the same, and its part of the project lasts 11 years. And the City of Red Wing signed a lease with Xcel Energy to do this project for 20 years. TWENTY YEARS? WHAT?!?! Here are the details…
The City staff has stressed the underlying Red Wing goal of landfill closure through the state’s “Closed Landfill Program.” When presented at the 11/9/2015 workshop (See 8c2-attachment -_11-09-15_Workshop_Minutes), there was “potential” for a sublease, and now that’s presumed. Red Wing’s Public Works has pressure from the MPCA to close its landfill, and also from Xcel because Red Wing “does not have enough ash to support this project as a stand alone project.” In other words, it’s dependent on Xcel to do this “project.” RW Public Works’s Moskwa admits that “the Xcel Energy landfill ash is the primary reason for the Lab USA’s interest in submitting a proposal.” (See p. 5, March 22. 2016, Sustainability Commission MeetingMinutes).
The City of Red Wing project would last just 1 year, and Xcel Energy’s share would last 10-11 years. (Lease, p. 17 of pdf: May 9, 2016_9b – attachment) Yet the City of Red Wing is leasing Lots 1 and 2 from Xcel Energy for 20 years! Given that disparity, the reasons for the lease/sublease arrangement with the City of Red Wing, Xcel, and Lab USA, rather than Lab USA taking on the lease, are not clear. Because there are three parties in this, that provides some measure of inherent instability in the project, and because Lab USA has no history in Minnesota, they’ll receive higher scrutiny, one would hope. On the other hand, the City of Red Wing seems to have yet another deal with Xcel Energy, where they’ve taken on a lease of land from Xcel for the City yard (for what purpose?) and that also includes lease of the land for this project and then the City plans to sublease to Lab USA (for the one year, for 11 years, for 20 years?), but yet the lion’s share of term of the project is the 10-11 years for Xcel, not the 1 year for Red Wing. So why is the City of Red Wing buying into this, subsidizing this, so heavily? To induce Xcel to do it? Some other reason?
With the lease for both lots already signed, the project is moving forward, and that’s a problem. How is this a good deal for the City of Red Wing? Is anyone paying attention?
Further, calling this project an allowed use, as “Public Works Maintenance Shops and Yards,” is a stretch. I’m not seeing any change from Agricultural Residential (AR) designation in the Comp Plan, and see statements that “Outlot A” was removed from the Tyler Hills PUD, Applications for Lot 1 and Lot 2 both denote Zoning as “AR.” I don’t see a change from AR to anything else. The Application includes “Proposed Tyler Hills Fourth Addition” and the lease boundary doesn’t match up with Outlot A, and Figures 1 and 2 don’t match up with the proposed plat. Details, anyone?
Other issues with the project itself?
- There’s traffic… “24 trucks/day” means 48 truck trips per day, or 24 trucks assigned to the area to make many trips back and forth and back and forth from the landfill to the building — this needs to be clarified, and impacts addressed. And these trucks are in addition to currently running Xcel garbage burner ash trucks and in addition to RW’s Lot 1 “Public Works Maintenance Shops and Yards” trucks that will be at least an additional 15-30 pickups and trucks per day.
- There’s sound… The homes directly north, west, and southwest are above, with this project situated down in a hole — and sound travels up. The “CUP Sound Study” is for the RW crusher, and does not take into account the Lab USA operation, so how does the EAW address that?
- There’s dust… From Mark Walsworth, who notes that “one of the items left out is just how much hazardous material that will be produced annually is not mentioned…all of it dust, and that by themselves, these numbers should scare anyone! Also notably missing is ANY plan or equipment to keep these from escaping to the environment.”
Lead 519,000 lbs
Cadmium 8,400 lbs
Chrome 51,000 lbs
Arsenic 6,000 lbs
Manganese 156,000 lbs
Nickel 24,600 lbs
Selenium 1,500 lbs
Mercury 600 lbs
- On and on…
Here are two Letters to the Editor written by Alan Muller about this:
LTE Muller – Mining Incinerator Ash is Foolish Idea 12-10-2015
LTE_Muller – Incinerator ash plan and actions behind it are toxic 3-31-2016
We need to take a look at that EAW (remember, it’s prepared by the applicant/project proponent) and see what is revealed, what is considered, and what’s left out.
It’s official — AGAIN — Clearbrook Xmsn Withdrawal
November 29th, 2016
It’s DONE! With the Order released today by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, the Clearbrook – Clearbrook West 115 kV transmission line is officially over, AGAIN! The PUC’s Order was issued earlier this month, and now another today from the Executive Secretary:
Why this second one? Perhaps because it’s the Executive Secretary who has power to permit withdrawal of the application, not the full Commission that issued that previous order? Who knows… but hey, that reinforcement can’t hurt@
Water in Wisconsin – EPA Region 5
November 18th, 2016
There was a Wisconsin focused EPA “listening session” last Tuesday in Eau Claire, and I received an email today urging comments be sent to the EPA. Didn’t notice that this was happening, GRRRRRRRRR. But in the request for comments, there’s little info on what to focus on, other than “water.” Hmmmm… I’m letting my imagination run wild, as in, “well… that’s a deep subject!”
Here’s a video of the session via Steve Hanson’s blog:
The EPA, and particularly Region 5, needs a lot of pressure now, after Region 5’s Susan Hedman’s “Flint failure” and her subsequent resignation. As we know, Drumpf wants to dismantle the EPA, which has long been on the Republican agenda. So we need not only pressure, but support and funding for EPA to be able to do its job, and active resistance to Myron Ebell, Drumpf’s EPA appointment.
Add to that the EPA’s delegation of much of its regulatory activities to the states (delegation primer here), in Minnesota air quality regulation is delegated to the Pollution Control Agency, and we see the state has a role as well. In Minnesota, there were funding cuts, so extreme that there’s a backlog of expires air permits, and those air permits are unlikely to be reissued under current regulations, so the emissions go on and on, allowed if the operator/owner files for a permit renewal. This is the case with Xcel’s Red Wing garbage burner, where the permit expired in 2009. It’s one example of hundreds here in Minnesota, where the MPCA has authority via EPA delegation.
This Wisconsin “listening session” comes at a time when Wisconsin’s DNR has been stripped of funding, employees, and authority by Walker’s administration. What’s left? The state agency is hobbled — that’s one of the primary issues!
Regarding Wisconsin, I think the thing to do is to demand that EPA take back regulatory authority because Wisconsin is unwilling and unable to do the job!
Here are examples:
EPA Page – NPDES Petition for Program Withdrawal in Minnesota
EPA Page – NPDES Petition for Program Withdrawal in Wisconsin
Here’s contact info for the EPA, from the EPA site:
Use this link to comment form to send the a comment or question, or send email to r5hotline@epa.gov.
If you’d like a reply, please tell the EPA how to reach you.Mailing Address:
US EPA Region 5
77 W. Jackson Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60604
Do let them know what you think!
Post-Election 2016 Hate Incidents
November 14th, 2016
Hate incidents, also knows as “The Trump Effect” are being tracked, big job, way too many, and it’s being updated constantly. One more in Minnesota, from the STrib:
Snapchat pic of dead deer, N-word has attention of Maple Grove Police
This is happening so often now, and here’s the list that was posted today:
From Southern Poverty Law Center:
Trump and ‘clean coal’ — just say NO!
November 13th, 2016
After this election, there are so many things to be concerned about, so many reasons to be utterly horrified… a Muslim database, Trump’s fraud trial to begin November 28th, promise of mass deportations, sharp increase in hate crimes, assaults and threats on the street and in the schools (and online, oh my!). Trump’s “100 Days” plan was out in October, and has many points, full of words to decode, including a ‘clean coal’ reference, showing he’s clueless, just clueless:
Trump’s Contract with the American voter — the First 100 Days
In the 2nd and 3rd debate, Trump used those two words that have deep meaning to me, “clean coal,” because of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project here in Minnesota, and because of the NRG proposed IGCC plant in Delaware, both of which were defeated after a long protracted fight. There is no such thing as ‘clean coal.”
Coal gasification is one thing that my coal-plant designing Mechanical Engineer father and I had some bonding moments over, going over EPRI coal gasification reports from the 80s and the Mesaba application… And I had the pleasure of meeting and working alongside my father’s boss’s son, who is also an engineer, formerly with NSP/Xcel, who knew what a bad idea coal gasification is. Oh yeah, we who fought these projects have learned a lot about coal gasification, “carbon capture and storage,” and will not go there again (see Legalectric and CAMP – Citizens Against the Mesaba Project sites for more info). We know it doesn’t work. And experience with the few projects that did go forward, what a mess, cost overruns beyond the wildest SWAG estimate, inability to get the plant running… Trump, don’t even think about it:
IGCC – Pipedreams of Green & Clean
IGCC, coal gasification, is nothing new. And despite its long history, it’s a history of failure, failure to live up to promises, failure to operate as a workable technology, and failure to produce electricity at a marketable cost, failure to produce electricity at all! On top of that, it’s often touted as being available with “CO2 capture and storage” which it is not. That’s a flat out lie. Check this old Legalectric post:
More on Carbon Capture Pipedream
A key to this promotion is massive subsidies from state and federal sources, and selection of locations desperate for economic jump-start, so desperate that they’ll bite on a project this absurd, places like Minnesota’s Iron Range, or southern Indiana, or Mississippi. The financing scam was put together at Harvard, and this blueprint has been used for all of these IGCC projects:
That, coupled with massive payments to “environmental” organizations to promote coal gasification, and they were off to the races.
Joyce Foundation PROMOTES coal gasification
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation & IGCC – WHY???
VP-elect Mike Pence should know all about coal gasification, he’s from Indiana. Indiana is coal generation central, and has had a couple of IGCC projects planned, construction started, and built. Indiana’s Wabash Valley plant is a perfect example, a small IGCC plant that was built, and after it was “completed,” took 22 on-site engineers to keep it running, now and then, at a greatly reduced capacity.
Wabash River Final Technical Report (it was “routinely” in violation of its water permit for selenium, cyanide and arsenic)
When they tried to sell the Wabash Valley plant recently, of course no one wanted it:
Wabash Valley coal gasification plant closing!
And another Indiana plant, with huge cost overruns that never started operating:
Rockport coal gasification plant dies – Indianapolis Star
Coal News: $2.8B coal gasification plant in Indiana canceled
And then there’s Edwardsport IGCC plant, also in Indiana, what a disaster:
Edwardsport plant not at promised capacity
Settlement won’t be the last word on controversial Indiana coal plant
Duke Energy Edwardsport Plant Settlement Expanded
The original settlement in September was a response to the plant’s rising operating costs while failing to meet performance expectations.
In the new agreement, Duke Energy agrees not to charge customers for $87.5 million of the operating costs of the Edwardsport plant, $2.5 million more than the original agreement.
And note that problems with Edwardsport tie in to similar problems with the Kemper IGCC plant in Mississippi:
Indiana ‘cease fire’ could provide a model for Mississippi regulators
Yes, in Mississippi, the Kemper IGCC plant is proving to be a problem, and yes, folks, note the Obama promotion of IGCC — after all, Obama is from Illinois, a coal state, and had lots of support from coal lobbyists. Check this detailed NY Times article:
Piles of Dirty Secrets Behind a Model “Clean Coal’ project: Mississippi project, a centerpiece of President Obama’s climate plan, has been plagued by problems that managers tried to conceal, and by cost overruns and questions of who will pay.
The sense of hope is fading fast, however. The Kemper coal plant is more than two years behind schedule and more than $4 billion over its initial budget, $2.4 billion, and it is still not operational.
The plant and its owner, Southern Company, are the focus of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and ratepayers, alleging fraud, are suing the company. Members of Congress have described the project as more boondoggle than boon. The mismanagement is particularly egregious, they say, given the urgent need to rein in the largest source of dangerous emissions around the world: coal plants.
Trump, just don’t.