Legalectric

December 10, 2024 was the Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing. It was before ALJ Christa Moseng, and there were very few commenters. I’m not seeing any minutes, and don’t know if they’ll ever be posted. There were only two of us commenting, myself, and Dan Wanbeke, who has a CapX 2020 line on his land. If the proposed MN Energy CON line is built, he could be surrounded by transmission.

Wanbeke gave a detailed description of his experience and takeaways, one of the most important was a comment of the PUC’s Bob Cupit (since retired):

There are winners, and there are losers.

A very interesting part of Wambeke’s testimony was regarding the stray voltage problem, all the water in their farm was energized, and the shower tested at 15 VOLTS! The local utility has been out many times, and when Capx 2020 was down for a brief time, no stray voltage, and when it was again energized, the stray voltage was back. He testified about induction current, that when there’s a distribution line running parallel to a massive transmission line, there can be induction current (this also happens with pipelines), and the distribution lines are indeed parallel with CapX transmission. This is NOT rocket science, and the CapX utilities better deal with this. If meeting minutes come out, I’ll post, though the thought occurs to me that this was a “hearing,” so it will probably be a top secret transcript. Will keep an eye out.

These next two tidbits were handouts at the hearing:

And now on to comments filed since:

FYI, the DOT “Policy of Accommodation” that should be entered in every docket, because it sets out how utilities can interact when projects are proposed near roads — I’ve observed cases where the utility paid no attention to DOT comments and landowners nearby were screwed with little notice because utility had to quickly alter plans because DOT would not allow planned placement:

On to the regular folks, so far just two of us!

I’d made oral comments at the hearing (via web), but had to put it in writing to be more specific, because the changes are immense, and there needs to be a record. As I said in my Comment, not for the first time, “I’m disgusted, frustrated, incensed, and committed to showing up before the Public Utilities Commission until I drop dead someday in the large hearing room.” I had to file a corrected version, was bleary-eyed and found typos, missing words and punctuation, and FYI, the first one below has been corrected:

This one, from Kristen Eide-Tollefson for CURE, Communities United for Responsible Energy, is important because she’s seen the changes over the decades, THREE decades, of dealing with the Power Plant Siting Act. Now it no longer exists, hence Eulogy for the PPSA:

Let’s trot out this one again, we’re overdue for a Transmission Transition:

An hour in utility futility! The Power Plant Siting Act annual hearing is over. Comment period? Here’s how:

The most important thing I see is that as of this legislative session, THE POWER PLANT SITING ACT NO LONGER EXISTS! Minn. Stat. Ch. 216E was the Power Plant Siting Act:

But now? It’s all been repealed and renumbered, and RENAMED under a different chapter:

And permitting statutes were repealed, amended, and then renumbered and sent over to a new “Chapter 216I.” Click that link to check it out.

What does it mean for siting and permitting if the Power Plant Siting Act is repealed? Kinda don’t want to think about it.

And AGAIN! It’s the Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing! You can attend in person, MASKED, or via webex or phone. Primary documents are posted below.

December 20, 2021 @ 9:30

PUC Large Meeting Room

121 – 7th Place East – 3rd Floor

St. Paul, MN

Comments? BE SURE TO NOTE DOCKET NUMBER FOR COMMENTS:

PUC Docket E999/PR-21-18 & OAH Docket 65-2500-37832

Written comments will be accepted through January 10, 2022, by 4:30 p.m.

Note notice only to those “who have requested notice” above? Nope, notice should be to all who are on service and project lists for projects active in the calendar year. Thankfully EERA does give notice to a lot more than just those “who have requested notice” (see “Notice & Service Lists” link posted above).

From the EQB Monitor:

Here are the projects EERA’s Summary says were approved — note that for wind it does NOT list applicable parts of 216E, such as Minn. Stat. 216E.03, Subd. 7!

Meanwhile, the update of rules for PPSA siting, Minn. R. ch. 7850, is stalled out again, WITHDRAWN by the PUC last Thursday, supposedly based on many comments made over the last few weeks by a bunch of people and orgs who were utterly absent through the NINE YEARS of this rulemaking proceeding. My grits are FRIED! The PUC Agenda Item starts at the very end of the meeting, and note the bogus statements about the “why” of this rulemaking. Let’s be clear here — it’s due to the 2005 legislative changes, SIXTEEN YEARS AGO. See PUC Docket R-12-1246. Good grief… Discussion starts at 2:48:28:

It’s out, the Administrative Law Judge’s report on this year’s Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing. The hearing this year was particularly frustrating, horrible turnout, and I’ve got a part in that, because I didn’t spend the massive amounts of time getting notice out to people, drumming up interest, so there is that…

Here’s the Report:

Here are a couple of documents to check out that I included with a written comment:

RIGHT NOW! It’s the PPSA Annual Hearing… sigh… here we go again.

Go to webex, Event # 146 311 2620. The powerpoint slides will be here (and will also be filed on eDockets).

To be able to comment, you have to get on the phone 866-609-6127, Conference ID: 4449079, and to comment, you need to press #1 and get in queue.

Here is the Commerce info about this year’s projects:

And for the record, folks, note that wind is not exempt from many of the parts of the PPSA: