Carol Overland - Legalectric

Seems that they’re making an effort in Hungary to design industrial edifices more user-friendly…  from the Telegraph.  Couldn’t they just use a big eagle nest as a hat?

Yesterday was a busy day for Goodhue Wind Truth.

First was a Motion to the Appellate Court:

Goodhue Wind Truth - Motion for Intervention/Request for Participation as Amicus Curiae

Next was our Petition for Rulemaking, filed yesterday as a part of our Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing Comments, and formally filed with Dr. Haar at the Public Utilities Commission.

Petition for Rulemaking

The PUC is in charge of the Wind siting rules, well, the EQB was directed by the legislature in 1995 to promulgate rules, and finally in January, 2008, the Commission finalized the siting rules for wind projects under 25 MW (and above 5 MW):

PUC Order - Siting of Wind Projects under 25 MW

And for projects 25 MW and above, they haven’t done anything, that was 17 years ago, so here we are… do we have to get a Writ of Mandamus?

WAKE UP PUC!  Time to do some wind rules!

216F.05 RULES.

The commission shall adopt rules governing the consideration of an application for a site permit for an LWECS that address the following:

(1) criteria that the commission shall use to designate LWECS sites, which must include the impact of LWECS on humans and the environment;

(2) procedures that the commission will follow in acting on an application for an LWECS;

(3) procedures for notification to the public of the application and for the conduct of a public information meeting and a public hearing on the proposed LWECS;

(4) requirements for environmental review of the LWECS;

(5) conditions in the site permit for turbine type and designs; site layout and construction; and operation and maintenance of the LWECS, including the requirement to restore, to the extent possible, the area affected by construction of the LWECS to the natural conditions that existed immediately before construction of the LWECS;

(6) revocation or suspension of a site permit when violations of the permit or other requirements occur; and

(7) payment of fees for the necessary and reasonable costs of the commission in acting on a permit application and carrying out the requirements of this chapter.

T. Boone Pickens’ AWA Goodhue AVIAN AND BAT PROTECTION PLAN was to be on the Public Utilities Commission agenda on Thursday.  That’s too soon, they just dumped hundreds of pages of info on us, and on the reviewing agencies, week before last:

AWA Goodhue Fall Migration Study

Revised AWA Goodhue Avian and Bat Protection Plan

And here’s the primary documents that caused the ruckus — the ABPP plan from hell and agency comments on it:

AVIAN AND BAT PROTECTION PLAN

USFWS Comments on AWA Goodhue’s Avian and Bat Protection Plan

DNR Comments on AWA Goodhue Avian & Bat Protection Plan

Given the specificity and many pages of comments, it’d take a bit more than a week to analyze the Comments (WHICH WERE WITHHELD BY COMMERCE FOR A WEEK AND NOT FILED UNTIL JANUARY 19!) and determine whether AWA Goodhue had properly addressed them.

I was floored by their last minute filings, and filed a Motion with the PUC to take it off the agenda:

Goodhue Wind Truth Motion for Extension

And not too long after, day or two, the PUC did indeed pull it off the agenda and didn’t reschedule:

PUC Notice of Withdrawal of Agenda Item

And now for the bad news today… the Appellate Court has tossed out the Goodhue Wind Truth appeal on a jurisdictional issue, that the Petition for Writ wasn’t served by personal service or Certified Mail.  This sucks in a big way…

Order to Dismiss Goodhue Wind Truth Appeal of AWA Goodhue Certificate of Need and Site Permit

It’s based on a Supreme Court decision in 2009, when the rules changed, or rather, interpretation of the rules, making service as specified under the Administrative Procedure Act a jurisdictional issue — if a Petition for Writ is not served personally or by Certified Mail, the Appellate Court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case.

In the Matter of the Risk Level Determination of J.M.T.

D-I-S-M-I-S-S-E-D.

Solar Flare - Washington Post/AP

Thanks to Kelly Fuller for the heads up.  A 2.206 Petition has been filed about the unsafe conditions at the Ft. Calhoun and Cooper plant.  Note that the Petitions were from July, 2011, and it takes six months for it to rise up to the Federal Register.

Here it is:

[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 15 (Tuesday, January 24, 2012)] [Notices] [Page 3515] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2012-1370] [[Page 3515]] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. 50-285, License No. DPR-40; Docket No. 50-298, License No. DPR-46; NRC-2012-0014] Request for Action Against Omaha Public Power District and Nebraska Public Power District Notice is hereby given that by petitions dated June 26 and July 3, 2011, respectively, Thomas Saporito (the petitioner) has requested that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) take escalated enforcement actions against Omaha Public Power District, the licensee for Fort Calhoun Station, Unit 1 (FCS), and Nebraska Public Power District, the licensee for Cooper Nuclear Station (Cooper). The petitions dated June 26 and July 3, 2011, are publicly available in the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under Accession Nos. ML11182B029 and ML11192A285, respectively. The petitioner has requested that the NRC take action to suspend or revoke the NRC licenses granted for the operation of nuclear power reactors and issue a notice of violation with a proposed civil penalty against the collectively named and each singularly named licensee in this matter--in the amount of $500,000 for Fort Calhoun Station and $1,000,000 for Cooper. Additionally, the petitioner requested that the NRC issue confirmatory orders to prohibit restart at FCS and to bring Cooper to a ``cold shutdown'' mode of operation until such time as: (1) The floodwaters subside to an appreciable lower level or sea level; (2) the licensee upgrades its flood protection plan; (3) the licensee repairs and enhances its current flood protection berms; and (4) the licensee upgrades its station blackout procedures to meet a challenging extended loss of offsite power due to floodwaters and other natural disasters or terrorist attacks. As the basis for these requests, the petitioner stated that: (1) The licensees' installed flood protection measures and systems and barriers at FCS and Cooper are not sufficient to adequately protect the nuclear reactor from a full-meltdown scenario like that currently unfolding in Japan; and (2) the licensees' station blackout procedures are not sufficient to meet a challenging extended loss of offsite power due to flood waters and other natural disasters or terrorist attacks. The requests are being treated pursuant to Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations Section 2.206 of the Commission's regulations. The requests have been referred to the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. As provided by Section 2.206, appropriate action will be taken on these petitions within a reasonable time. The petitioner requested an opportunity to address the Petition Review Board (PRB). The PRB held a recorded teleconference with the petitioner on August 29, 2011, during which the petitioner supplemented and clarified the petitions. The results of those discussions were considered in the PRB's determination regarding the petitioner's requests. As a result, the PRB acknowledged the petitioner's concerns regarding flood protection, including station blackout procedures, at FCS and Cooper. By letter dated January 13, 2012 (ADAMS Accession No. ML120030022), the Director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation denied the petitioner's requests for immediate action. Additionally, the PRB noted that: (1) Natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding, and (2) station blackout regulations are undergoing NRC review as part of the lessons learned from the Fukushima event. The PRB intends to use the results of the Fukushima review to inform its final decision on whether to implement the requested actions. Copies of the petitions dated June 26 and July 3, 2011, are available for inspection at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland 20852. Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC are accessible electronically through ADAMS in the NRC Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS should contact the NRC's PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-(800) 397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by email to PDR.Resource@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 13th day of January 2012. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Eric J. Leeds, Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 2012-1370 Filed 1-23-12; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

Double trouble for AWA - taken in the AWA Goodhue wind project footprint:

to be clear, there are lots and lots of bald eagles here, and there are documented golden eagles too.  USFWS has said there are no permits available for golden eagles for this project.

ABPP - that’s Avian and Bat Protection Plan:

AVIAN AND BAT PROTECTION PLAN

AWA Goodhue Fall Migration Study

U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources have filed comments on the Avian and Bat Protection Plan.  These are MUST READ Comments!

USFWS Comments on ABPP

DNR Comments on ABPP

And here is the response to my Data Request to the Board of Animal Health asking for copies of AWA Complaints to Board of Animal Health about Eagle Baiting and the reports of their investigations showing no violations found, that there is no basis for enforcement action:

Response to Data Request - Board of Animal Health

In the AWA Goodhue wind project footprint, T. Boone Pickens is at it again - the helicopters are flying today:

Does that look like 200 feet??  Is it the same one from Brainerd Helicopter Service?

Here they are by the met tower, that’s 197 feet tall,  just enough to keep under the lighting requirement, and the helicopter is just above:

Clients got the call from sheriff and utilized their phone tree to spread the word that AWA Goodhue helicopters would be flying today, notice came in at 10:00 a.m. and helicopter sighted at 10:30 a.m.  Sheriff did a good job in notifying as soon as notice came in, but come on AWA, how about letting the landowners know reasonably ahead of time, report it when you book the helicopter???  It’s not that hard!

Here it is near a communications tower - the lights are out on that tower, somebody call maintenance!

Wednesday, January 18, a day of silence.

See ya Thursday!

There’s good news and bad news.  The good news is that the PUC did order that the Hiawatha Project transmission line be undergrounded.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

The bad news is that NO ONE is addressing need, need has been presumed, despite lots of evidence in the record that the project is way way more than what is required for the claimed 55MW need, which in itself is questionable.  Silence…  Those who worked so hard to get a requirement for a Certificate of Need abdicated, zero follow through, after legislation passed to require a Certificate of Need, and it then wound its way through the PUC process, and there were NO intervenors.

Here’s the PUC’s deliberation:

AUDIO - Hiawatha begins at 16:50

It seems to end before they’re done, and there’s a note that complete audio will be posted later, so check back.  Right now there’s about 45 minutes and it ends as they’re going through exceptions to the ALJ report, a prelude to the ultimate vote.

Here’s the report in theSTrib:

Xcel told to bury new power lines across south Minneapolis

Article by: STEVE BRANDT , Star Tribune
Updated: January 12, 2012 - 11:15 PM

PUC decision protects south Minneapolis greenway, but doesn’t say how to cover extra $13.6 million cost.

++++++++

A state board Thursday ordered that new high-voltage power lines across the heart of south Minneapolis be buried underground but deferred the question of who should pay the extra $13.6 million cost.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission ordered that the twin 115-kilovolt lines requested by Xcel Energy be deemed necessary but said they should be buried under E. 28th Street.

That’s a victory for the city and a number of neighborhood representatives. They argued that an alternative route that would run lines overhead or underground along the bike-pedestrian corridor was too disruptive. “It’s a huge victory, said Soren Jensen, staff chief for the Midtown Greenway Coalition.

But the precedent-setting question of who pays will require a separate proceeding that will last several months and determine whether all Xcel customers in Minnesota will help bear the cost of burying the lines or just those in Minneapolis.

The city argued that all Xcel customers should pay because the factors arguing for burying the route are so compelling that any other route, including the greenway, would be unreasonable. Burial of the lines, the city said, should thus be considered a standard cost, borne by all customers, rather than a special accommodation whose extra costs should accrue only to Minneapolis residents. Xcel agreed with that wider-cost impact.

But the PUC wasn’t ready to make that precedent-setting decision now, telling Xcel to file its views in 30 days in a proceeding that will give other potentially affected parties a chance to comment.

“There is no precedent case just like this,” said attorney James Strommen, who argued on behalf of suburban cities in support of the city position. “The standard is not always overhead in all cases, in our view.”

At the PUC’s request, Xcel generated estimates of the amounts needed to pay off the extra cost of the buried lines. To do so in the standard five years, the per customer cost would be $12 if spread statewide, and $83.40 if levied only within Minneapolis.

Xcel estimates that the lines and two new substations at either end, at Hiawatha and Oakland Avenues, will cost $42 million. The utility will refine those costs as it does final engineering for the project; it plans to break ground later this year and start operations in 2014.

Xcel argued that since 2006, electrical demand has exceeded its capacity to reliably provide service to customers in the south Minneapolis area. Opponents argued that Xcel has further plans to bisect south Minneapolis with transmission lines, has overestimated demand and should substitute conservation measures.

The utility originally proposed that the lines be built within the Midtown corridor paralleling Lake Street somewhere between E. 31st Street and E. 26th Street. It said that a greenway route would be cheapest but that option quickly drew opposition from the recreation lobby.

The PUC’s decision largely followed the recommendations 15 months ago of Administrative Law Judge Beverly Jones Heydinger. She cited a 1993 court decision protecting the downtown Minneapolis Armory to find that reasons of cost, convenience and efficiency aren’t sufficient to impair a protected historic district such as the greenway trench and its bridges when alternatives exist.

Not bad for an amateur!

Tried some ciabatta, let the sponge go a little too long but it came out great — must be beginner’s luck.  At this ripe age, I decided that it’s time to learn to bake bread, never have before, and I don’t know why.  Must be nesting, trying to get the kitchen in the “new” house together.  Or maybe it’s just time to make some dough…