Legalectric

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!

9:30 a.m. Wednesday November 9, 2022

3rd Floor Large Meeting Room

Public Utilities Commission

121 – 7th Place East, St. Paul

Just got notice of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission‘s Power Plant Siting Act annual hearing:

This happens every year, and it’s important to spread the word around. One change that is very good is that the Commission is doing a good job of serving notice of the hearing — there are ~ 128 pages of recipients of this notice! GOOD! Love the interwebs, makes it so easy to let people know what’s happening.

The “Power Plant” aspect is very broad, this includes not just “power plants,” but transmission lines, wind projects, and solar too. This is the opportunity to tell the Public Utilities Commission, and the state generally, what works and what doesn’t work about the procedures for siting electric utility infrastructure, ideally based on your experience.

One positive aspect of COVID is that hearings are now held in “hybrid” format, both in person and online via Webex:

It is best if using Webex (http://mn.gov/puc/about-us/calendar/ and click on “November 9, 2022” to get to “webcast”) to have video on your computer and to use the phone for audio, whether listening or making comments — that’s the best way to avoid feedback (using headphones helps too). The webcast link usually goes live 10 minutes or so before the hearing starts.

What to comment about? If you’ve had experience with a Public Utilities Commission siting docket, if there were issues that made it difficult to participate, things needing clarification, rules and/or procedures that need changing, this is a way to bring it to the Commission’s attention. Over the 27 years that I’ve been dealing with utility siting issues, oh, the horror stories I can and do tell. The system needs work, and siting infrastructure is a constantly evolving process, sometimes very good changes are made, and sometimes, no matter how much we petition (formally and informally), challenge, cajole, demand, they just won’t take responsibility, won’t do their jobs, and won’t even promulgate necessary rules.

A main point of holding this hearing, as above, is hearing from “the public.”

In addition to the public participation issues exposed in this report (about which not much, not enough, has been done), a few things that I’ll be bringing up, orally or in writing:

• The Office of Legislative Auditor investigated the Public Utilities Commission‘s practices, and this report had recommendations, most of which have not been addressed:

OLA-Report_PUC Public Participation 2020

• The Public Utilities Commission has not, in the decades I’ve been participating in the PPSA Annual Hearing, EVER brought up the PPSA for discussion and ACTION on issues raised.

• Wind siting “guidelines” were adopted via Commerce-EERA without public notice or opportunity for input: Large Wind Application Guide.2

• Notice has not been provided to landowners on transmission line routes where “alternate” routes are proposed, and sometimes landowners have not discovered their land may be affected until the public hearing, very late in the process.

• Power Plant Siting Act rule revisions, due after the 2005 Power Plant Siting Act legislative changes, have not been promulgated, despite a years long process, NINE YEARS, many committee meetings, and a lot of work by a lot of people. The Public Utilities Commission just dropped it… no action… sigh… Minn. R. ch 7849 & 7850 Rulemaking? DEAD!

• Despite 2 rulemaking petitions to the Public Utilities Commission, there are no wind siting rules! The Commission refuses to promulgate wind siting rules, instead using Small Wind Standards:

There’s no end to the issues to raise.

In addition to the public hearing, comments may be submitted in writing:

Get to it! Register your experience with the Public Utilities Commission, and let them know what needs work.

A wind energy company has pleaded guilty after killing at least 150 eagles

What’s really odd about this is that most of the projects that I’ve been dealing with in permitting have secured eagle take permits — I thought. In this case, NextEra seems as a policy not to have take permits. HUH?

I am remembering resistance to developers answering questions about eagle take permits, and I think that it comes down to whether USFWS requires them to get one.

Here’s USFWS info on eagle permits here in the Midwest – it appears that there are only three eagle take permits issued for Minnesota wind projects, Red Pine, Getty/Black Oak, and Pleasant Valley/Grand Meadow:

Midwest Region- NEPA Documents for Eagle Permits

This seems to say that there are only FIVE eagle take permits? Here’s the application for one project that I’d worked on:

Black Oak/Getty Wind Farm Eagle Take Permit Application

For the Freeborn Wind project, we entered information about locations of nests and photos of eagles foraging, nests and foraging territory being, supposedly, two criteria examined in siting of wind projects and consideration of need for take permits:

See Freeborn Wind ALJ Recommendation, and search for “eagle” in the Recommendation.

Methinks this will have significant impact, but sentencing a company to probation — but how does that work?

… sigh… Totally ignores ALJ Recommendation after contested case hearing, setting up the issues that followed:

A new noise study not provided until AFTER the initial permit was granted, there was NO demonstration that they could comply, and what they provided after the first permit granted, and before the second decision, was NOT subject to a contested case. Earth to Mars, it’s “material issues of FACT,” not “issues” that must be demonstrated to get a contested case, and these are thousands of pages of facts not in evidence and not subject to contested case.

This is just so wrong, an application is NOT environmental review:

And this — how could issues and facts NOT part of the contested case have been addressed in the contested case?

New material issues of FACTS – FACTS not in existence for initial contested case, FACTS not provided until AFTER the initial permit was granted. “…relator therefore alleges no new material facts beyond those raised at the first contested-case hearing.” WHAT?!?!

How’s this for new material FACT beyond those raised at the first contested-case hearing:

How many hundred pages of NEW material FACTS? All this was part of PUC record, AFTER the first permit was issued. All this was included as new material issues of fact in our request for a second contested case. All this was included in appeal. Yet:

“As to these issues, relator therefore alleges no new material facts beyond those raised at the first contested-case hearing.”

My head is going to explode. Such deceptive word games, summarized with a demonstrably false statement.