Legalectric

Here we go again. It’s bad enough that CapX 2020 is morphing into CapX 2050/Grid North Partners, but they’re having a “conference” (sign up here) in a couple weeks.

Look at the Chair of this panel, none other than the Chair of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, and the description:

… TO MEET OUR COLLECTIVE GOALS?

Remember the toadying for CapX 2020? Remember the toadying for Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project coal gasification? Remember the toadying for Prairie Island/NSP/Xcel Energy’s nuclear plants, particularly Prairie Island circa 1994 and 2003?

This sort of thing has been an issue before, and former Chair LeRoy Koppendrayer has been the only one to acknowledge this type of participation as an issue — this was in 2007:

IEDC gets carried away

When this happens, I contact the PUC and register concerns, and have always been assured that they know well the boundaries.

And, well, here’s Commissioner Tuma on DOE Nuclear Waste panel circa 2016:

DOE “Consent-Based” Nuclear Waste Mtg.

This was also an issue with Commissioner Reha when she went off on a coal gasification junket to Belgium and promotion of CapX 2020! See the John Tuma link, above, for this with active links:

When the promotion and bias is so blatant, I’m not about to watch silently. Earth to PUC Commissioners, here are the PUC’s rules:

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/7845.0400/

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/7845.0700/

And when you see something, say something?

Ummmm, right…

ALJ “INVESTIGATIVE REPORT PURSUANT TO MINN. STAT. § 216A.037”

Listen to Commissioner Tuma’s words that were the subject of our complaint at the link above. And the ALJ’s report delivers this warning:

I guess it will be an informal complaint, eh?

Just filed… Walleye Neighbors in Minnesota and South Dakota Comments on the Walleye Wind Draft Site Permit. Now it’s time for a nap!

Just wow… It’s the sort of thing that makes my head burst!

Association of Freeborn County Landowners has been challenging the invasion of Freeborn Wind, a/k/a Xcel Energy a/k/a Northern States Power into this existing community.

Hundreds of meetings, filings, over the last FOUR YEARS, and we got the first contested case hearing ever for a wind project in Minnesota… the first in 20+ years of siting wind projects, and the first time a projects comes to the test, the ALJ recommends the permit be denied!

The Recommendation of the Administrative Law Judge:

The Public Utilities Commission does a perverse and contorted 180 and lets Freeborn have their way, and the public, residents be damned.

Freeborn? PUC upends ALJ’s Freeborn Wind Recommendation

Then 17 turbines left for Iowa, but 24 remain.

… we get tossed out by the appellate court, which affirmed the Commission’s decisions and Orders.

Freeborn Wind appeal – we lose…

And earlier this week, they serve this:

Let’s see… they have open access to ratepayer pocketbooks, they’re reimbursed for their costs! BY US! We ratepayers have to pay! Meanwhile, for the public to show up, and to challenge for FOUR YEARS on this project, or any project, like the Mesaba project, or CapX 2020!, people hold garage sales, put grain in at the elevator, a silent auction in a tornado, and plain old arm-twisting to cover our comparatively nominal costs.

Our objection just filed:

NOW THEY THINK WE SHOULD PAY THEM $3,312.75?

Meanwhile, don’t cha wonder how’s Xcel Energy doing these days? Their 1Q report just out… More customers, decreased sales, and stock soars:

Hmmmmmmm, remember that Texas storm? Here’s the impacts:

Xcel easily tops earnings estimates

Ain’t capitalism grand…

The judge’s Order arrived, and it’s disappointing, to put it mildly.

The judge’s decision focused on the belief that these matters had been litigated in another forum, so we couldn’t do it again. Litigated? Intervention is not necessarily litigation, though certainly AFCL intervened in the Freeborn Wind docket, and certainly did not in the Plum Creek, Three Waters or Buffalo Ridge dockets. And in this District Court proceeding, Lisa Agrimonti let me know that another attorney would be lead in this case, that their firm was putting a “litigator” on it. Hmmmm, Agrimonti’s not a litigator, and put Alethea Huyser on the job, so the firm admits that what we, Freeborn Wind and AFCL, were doing in those dockets was not litigation, right, I get it… uh-huh… sigh…

How do we deal with these systemic problems in wind siting? 25 years and still no rules? Setbacks aren’t sufficient to prevent noise standard violations and people need to leave their homes to be able to sleep, so far two families reached settlements and buyouts to get away from noisy turbines. Wind projects pay out for blinds so people can sit in the dark, or suggest going to Florida, to avoid shadow flicker inflicted on them. At the PPSA Annual Hearing last week, the DOT said it wants the 250 foot setback from roads reevaluated. The Public Utilities Commission has actual and constructive notice of these problems for years, yet nothing happens…

Let’s see… rulemaking Petitions denied over and over. The only time we’ve had a contested case, the judge recommended denial because developer had not demonstrated compliance with noise standard, and recommended a lower number of hours as “acceptable” for shadow flicker.

Once more with feeling — the ONLY time, the FIRST time, in Minnesota history where there was a contested case on a wind siting permit, the only time it could arguably be said the issues were “litigated,” the ALJ recommended that the permit be denied!

WE WON!!! ALJ Recommend Freeborn Permit be DENIED, or…

May 14th, 2018

The PUC turned that around in a private settlement with the developer, excluding intervenors.

Freeborn? PUC upends ALJ’s Freeborn Wind Recommendation

September 21st, 2018

Now what… How many more complaints, how many more landowner settlements, before they fix this mess?

What’s the point of intervening, becoming a party? What’s the point of raising issues at the Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing (for 23 years)? What’s the point of over and over raising the systemic problems in the PUC’s wind siting? How do we work “within the system” when the system is broken?