Legalectric

A quick reminder:

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

LTE_Walsworth – Mayor didn’t raise NIMBY_4-6-2016

LTE_Muller – NIMBY is good thing, NIABY is better  4-15-16

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.

Way back during the CapX 2020 proceeding, it became clear that Rochester Public Utilities planned to build gas generation just west of town, at the “Westside” site.  But this was downplayed, and ignored by the ALJ, because it would be evidence that CapX 2020 wasn’t “needed.”  And of course demand was way down, which we knew but which was also ignored, and that was one more reason CapX 2020 wasn’t needed.  The Rochester gas generation was delayed.

But recently they announced the new gas pipeline around the city, and now, the gas plant.  Today, from the MPCA:

MPCA requests/expects certain things to be addressed in Comments, “you must state” per the MPCA:

(1) Your interest in the permit application or the draft permit.
(2) The action you wish the MPCA to take, including specific references to the section of the draft permit you believe should be changed.
(3) The reasons supporting your position, stated with sufficient specificity as to allow the MPCA to investigate the merits of the position.

Send Comments to:

Rachel Yucuis
Industrial Division
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
520 Lafayette Rd
St. Paul, MN 55155
Phone: 651-757-2863
Email: rachel.yucuis@state.mn.us

And last night in Rochester, more of the MPCA “Clean Power Plan” listening sessions.  This one was less well attended that Monday’s in Minneapolis, but packed into a much smaller, almost claustrophobic sized room.  Many concerns were raised, in large part because the “Clean Power Plan” remains a mystery — there is no MPCA plan for us to check out and comment on, and the federal Supreme Court put the EPA’s plan on hold.

The MPCA has been meeting with “stakeholders” which is primarily utilities, with a few energy wonks also attending — see this link, and scroll down for meetings and materials:

Clean Power Plan – Rulemaking (and meetings)

A turnout of this size, both last night and the night before, means that yes, people are interested and concerned, and I hope everyone stays in the loop and participates.

Last night at the Urban League, the MPCA held a meeting, a “listening session” about the proposed Clean Power Plan as a prelude to its rulemaking.

TONIGHT IS ANOTHER MEETING:

MPCA Clean Power Plan Listening Session

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

5:30 p.m. – ?  At least 8 p.m.

Cornerstone Plaza Hotel

401 6th Street S.W.

Rochester, MN

The MPCA has been holding ‘listening sessions,” a/k/a meetings, and has info on its site:

Clean Power Plan: Rulemaking in Minnesota

• Clean Power Plan (carbon pollution)
• Clean Power Plan in depth

Here’s the federal plan, now on hold at order of the court:

Clean Power Plan (U.S. EPA)

I very much do like that they’re going forward, despite the federal stay, because it is going to take some time to ramp up efforts.

Here’s the handout I brought to that meeting.  I ran out, only about 1/4 of the room covered, so that means there were at least 80 people there.

Handout-MPCA Public Meeting_Clean Power Plan

On the other hand, there are a lot of things I take issue with.

One thing that’s discouraging to me is that this is called the “Clean Power Plan” but they have not made any attempt to separate out and prohibit burning of garbage and biomass, both very dirty by any definition.  Incineration must be removed from the definition of “renewable.”

Another issue is that they’re NOT going to put together a rulemaking Advisory Committee, as provided by statute.  I asked about this last night and they verified it.

Minn. Stat. §14.101, Subd. 2.  Advisory committees.

Each agency may also appoint committees to comment, before publication of a notice of intent to adopt or a notice of hearing, on the subject matter of a possible rulemaking under active consideration within the agency.

Instead, what they’re doing is gathering the same ol’ same ol’ folks in an informal process, and they’re not going over a proposed rule prior to its being sent to the MPCA head (remember, there is no Citizens Board thanks to certain MN legislators) for release, and when it’s released, it’s too late for substantive changes.  The MPCA was part of the crew, with DNR and EQB, that so badly mangled that silica sand rulemaking (ummmm, whatever became of that, anyway?).  This does not bode well.

So now, on to tonight’s meeting, gotta do some prep.

And yes, that’s Frank “Coal Ash” Kolasch presenting.  What a moniker!

Tonight’s gathering starts at 5:30 p.m. or so with an open house (coffee & cookies), and the presentation and “listening” starts at 6:30 p.m.

MPCA Clean Power Plan Listening Session

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

5:30 p.m. – ?  At least 8 p.m.

Cornerstone Plaza Hotel

401 6th Street S.W.

Rochester, MN

Be there or be square!