Legalectric

T. Boone Pickens a/k/a Mesa Power a/k/a AWA Goodhue’s helicopter and and an eagle captured on video.  This is the N144BH helicopter, which, upon information and belief, is owned by “Brainerd Helicopter Service.”

What on earth do they think they’re doing? Check the video and see for yourself:

Scott Logan caught this on video, way to go!

Complaints — a few things you can do, I’d recommend all of them:
1) Contact the Sheriff, either 911 or (651)385-3155
2) There’s a complaint procedure established by the PUC

PUC Complaint Process

Essentially, BOTH email a complaint to DOC.energypermitcompliance@state.mn.us
and mail to:

AWA Goodhue, LLC
706 2nd Avenue South, Suite 1200
Minneapolis, MN 55402

3) Call the FAA’s Flight Stand District Office to make a complaint 612-713-4211 (when I clicked on the contact link, I got a different number, 612-253-4400). Here’s the “email link.“

Info about how to make FAA Complaint:
FAA Low flying Aircraft Complaints

4) File on PUC’s AWA Goodhue Siting Docket – at www.puc.state.mn.us and then to Efiling, then eFile to docket 08-1233.

Meanwhile, AWA Goodhue is alleging in its Avian and Bat Protection Plan that there IS eagle baiting going on, and have made reports to the Board of Animal Health. AVIAN AND BAT PROTECTION PLAN (see p. 10-11)

That’s funny — the ABPP

After four years, finally, the Public Utilities Commission has denied an extension of the old, old permit.  Kenyon Wind was first applied for way back in 2006.  To see the full PUC record, go to www.puc.state.mn.us and go to “Search eDockets” and then search for “06-1445.”  Recently, because their permit was expiring, it was granted and then two years was extended for two years, they came back to the PUC for yet another extension.

Here’s the report from the Red Wing Republican Eagle:

Kenyon Wind project in doubt after state denies permit extension

They haven’t built this project, despite being issued a permit on July 18, 2007, nearly a year after they’d applied.  Since that time, much has changed.  Goodhue County passed its Goodhue County Wind Ordinance.   The laws for Community Based Energy Development (C-BED) have changed, amended each year since it was passed.  And the Kenyon Wind Project has changed:

Here’s the CFER’s Comment:

CFERS Comment

Here’s Kenyon Wind’s comments:

Kenyon Wind Response to Comments

And the PUC denied the permit, 3-2.  Commissioners Pugh, O’Brien and Wergin voting to Chair Boyd and Judge Reha were the two voting against denial of Kenyon Wind’s request for extension.

EEEEEEEEEEEEE-HA!!!  It took four years, but this vaporware project is finally dead!

In yesterday’s STrib there was a Commentary written by Dr. Gary Carlson, of Northfield.  He gave a very accurate impression of what it is to go to a Rice County Planning Commission meeting.  FRUSTRATING!  To put it mildly.  He also has started digging into health impacts of wind. He’s put himself out as a canary:

Here’s his Commentary:

Gary Carlson: Wind energy’s ripple effects

Once I learned how turbines can affect people, I had to speak up.

By GARY CARLSON

I just returned from a meeting of my county planning committee, where we debated the pros and cons of our neighbor’s proposal to put up two 400-foot wind turbines, with the closest about 1,300 feet from our property line. My family lives on a bluff on the edge of Northfield. I cannot sleep. It was my first contact with any kind of city or county planning, and the four-hour meeting was surreal. But let me step back and provide the background to this story.

I am an integrative physician who mainly works with patients suffering chronic problems. Often, they have seen many traditional doctors who have not been able to help them; they come to me as a last resort. They have “functional problems” — irritable bowel syndrome, chronic headaches, fibromyalgia. Often their doctors “can’t find anything wrong” with X-rays, blood tests or biopsies. But nonetheless these people are sick. Many of them are very sensitive to environmental stimuli, probably as an adaptive reaction to their chronic problems.

So back to the wind on the bluff. I also fancy myself an environmentalist. We placed a geothermal heat pump in our house 12 years ago when most people didn’t know what they were. I regularly walk the 6-mile round trip to work to save on CO2 emissions. So six weeks ago when we heard about the plan to put up these turbines, I was a little ambivalent. My brother, who lives nearby, didn’t like it. I have always liked wind power, and though I didn’t really want such large structures in my morning sky, I kind of let it go.

Then I got hit over the head. I was reading the New York Times and came upon an article about multiple lawsuits against wind farms all over the United States because of health concerns, and I said to myself, “What health concerns?” Three hours of intense Internet research later, I was shocked.

I know environmental sensitivity; these are the patients I take care of every day.

The last four weeks have been a blur. Getting up to speed on the science of sound and the medical research related to wind turbines has been exhausting, and in the process I have discovered the dark medical underbelly of industrial-sized turbines. They produce a lot of infrasonic and low-frequency noise. You don’t hear it, but it can make you sick. It is hard to put a number on how many people are affected, but some experts suggest that 15 percent of people living within one-half to one mile of one of these turbines will develop some sort of symptom. Sleep disturbance is the most common problem. If you are old, or young, tend to get carsick easily, or have a chronic medical disease, you are at higher risk. Some are affected so severely that they have to move.

Minnesota’s wind turbine setbacks are ridiculously outdated, although the Public Utilities Commission is trying to catch up. Some European countries have listened to their citizens and have moved setbacks to between half a mile and a mile. We listen to the big wind energy companies and are stuck around 500 feet.

There were five wind projects on the docket at the planning meeting, and I kept standing up with my two minutes of time for each of them trying to educate about infrasonic noise and about why we need to protect people with these setbacks. I think they thought I was a madman. I felt like a canary in the mine yelling, “Please, please — we can have wind turbines, but don’t place them closer then one-half mile from residences, or these people, especially vulnerable people, will get sick!”

We lost four and tied one (tabled for now). I felt devastated.

But don’t count me out, because this canary can still sing.

Gary Carlson is board-certified in family medicine, holistic medicine and medical acupuncture. He works at the Allina Medical Clinic in Northfield and the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing at the Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

Today (well, really really late yesterday), Goodhue Wind Truth filed the testimony of Richard R. James, INCE, for Wednesday’s hearing over in Goodhue:

Direct Testimony – Richard R. James, INCE

A must read:

The “How-To” Guide to Siting Wind Turbines to Prevent Health Risks from Sound

And this was published earlier this month:

Wind Turbine Noise – What Audiologists Should Know

To check out the rest of his exhibits, look at the PUC docket for the AWA Goodhue Wind project:

• www.puc.state.mn.us

• and then to “Search eDockets”

• and then search for docket 08-1233

Wednesday’s hearing is for both the Certificate of Need and Siting Permit for AWA Goodhue’s 78MW wind project in Goodhue County, west of the City of Goodhue, utilizing the Goodhue and Vasa substations.  This is the one that T.Boone Pickens is involved with, and they’re claiming it’s a C-BED project — but the AWA Goodhue LLC’s HQ is at 8117 Preston Road, Suite 200, Dallas, Texas, 75225.  Walker Clarke is the “organizer” and he’s in Houston.

Yup, sounds locally owned to me!

Tomorrow there are FOUR AWA Goodhue Wind dockets at the PUC, a siting docket where a Draft Permit is proposed, a Certificate of Need docket, and two Power Purchase Agreement dockets.

MOES Reply Comments – Siting Docket 08-1233

Staff Briefing Papers – PPA Dockets 09-1349 and 09-1350

Staff Briefing Papers – Certificate of Need 09-1186

So in response to that:

Goodhue Wind Truth – Siting Docket Comment 08-1233

Goodhue Wind Truth Comment – CoN & PPA 09-1186, 09-1349, 09-1350

To look up the dockets, go to www.puc.state.mn.us and then “Search eDockets” and then search for the docket numbers, as above.

And check out the Goodhue Wind Truth site.

What’s the big deal?  Well, they want to site this project when the maps provided in the application are way way off, as in claiming land rights where they have none, “forgetting” to put homes on the map, that sort of thing.  No environmental review has been done and it’s a BIG project, the “Environmental Report” won’t be done until June — so why is this before the PUC now? And they claim it’s a C-BED project which has some preference in the scheme of Power Purchase Agreements and fulfilling the renewable energy mandate when it’s not exactly local ownership — remember those T. Boone Pickens articles last week? Pickens comes to Goodhue?

Pickens wind turbines come to Goodhue