Now that the MPCA has finally gotten around to taking steps to shut down that horrific health hazard that its owner, Excel, chooses to call a dairy farm, neighbors are left to wonder: what about the millions of gallons of manure left behind? (more…)

John Tuma’s Capitol Update – The Pre-Session Version

“There is a basic law of nuclear waste often overlooked – all waste remains where it is first put.”
 
- Richard Wilson Riley, Then Governor of South Carolina, 1982*
 
This little bit of southern frankness from South Carolina happened to find its way into Minnesota history when it was quoted by administrative law judge Allen W. Klien in his opinion advising the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to reject Northern States Power’s (NSP, now Xcel Energy) petition to store nuclear waste at the Prairie Island nuclear plant in April 1992.  One of NSP’s central arguments was that storage outside of Prairie Island would only be temporary.  It appears that former Governor Riley’s “Law of Nuclear Waste” was truer than the predictions of the high-priced experts hired by NSP who claimed back in the 1992 at the administrative hearings that the waste would be removed by 2010.

By the way, it is still there and still causing problems. 

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By Erin Stojan Ruccolo, senior policy associate, Fresh Energy

A new report finds that Twin Cities building owners could save up to $10 million a year by implementing day shift cleaning. The report, “Clean Sweep: How a New Approach to Cleaning Buildings in the Twin Cities Can Protect Our Health and the Environment While Securing Jobs and Saving Money,” was released today by the Blue Green Alliance and SEIU Local 26. It finds that a day shift cleaning transition could save 4-8 percent in office building energy costs, and adopting green cleaning practices–which encourages the use of less toxic cleaning products–would protect the health of janitorial and office workers in commercial office buildings. (more…)

By Alison Lindburg, global warming solutions coordinator, Fresh Energy

The American Corn Growers Association (ACGA) is speaking out in strong support of national energy and climate legislation. Keith Dittrich, chairman of the board of the ACGA, spoke January 15 in Chicago. A corn and soybean farmer from Nebraska, Dittrich addressed cap and trade policy as an opportunity to “save our productive environment.” (more…)

The end of January may not be the best time to whine about the unusually cool summers we’ve been experiencing in these parts (“Seventy degrees in August? I’m freezing!”). But at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society earlier this week, two fascinating studies linked cooler, wetter summers to our massive conversion of Midwestern real estate to row crops like corn. (more…)

John Tuma’s Capitol Update – the Pre-Session Version

“This place is now feeling the pressure of hard times… they have not found bottom yet…they have recently voted to loan the credit of the State for $5,000,000 & have thus hung a millstone around their neck, which they will doubtless have to bear for [m]any years to come…”

John P. Bardwell
Agent of the American Missionary Association
From St. Paul on May 7, 1858*

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Cindy Gentz of Grand Marais offers an interesting point of view:

We all hear daily speculations about the state of the economy. Some pundits believe we are on the cusp of seeing a turn around in the housing market while others are very skeptical of any success in the near future.  People talk about the jobs lost, the homes lost, the disillusionment nation-wide.  A few young people put a positive spin on things by saying that houses are finally affordable again for those who have just graduated college.  However, I have heard no one on the radio or TV talk about the other big positive of the Great Recession: the Great Respite it has given the environment.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture released its long-awaited multi-agency review of the herbicide atrazine just after lunch today. No headline-making news here: “While the review finds that atrazine regulations protect human health and the environment in Minnesota, it also identifies several opportunities to further minimize atrazine impacts,” states the MDA’s press release. Despite the controversial nature of atrazine, one could predict such a milquetoast conclusion, considering the MDA’s attempts to not offend the agrichemical community in the past. What is striking about this review is the timing of its coming out party. (more…)

Darby Nelson of the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council is explaining this year’s Council recommendations to the Legislature for fish, game and wildlife habitat protection. The Council is responsible for selecting and recommending proposals submitted by government agencies and nonprofit organizations for funding from the Legacy Amendment’s Outdoor Heritage Fund. This week, he covers recommendations for the Forest/Prairie Transition region and Southeast Forests.

You can find Darby’s analysis here.

John Tuma’s Capitol Update – The Pre-Session Version

“Even Mr. Schwartz, the expert sponsored by NSP, conceded that 2010 was optimistic”
       Allen W. Klien
       April 10, 1992

Allen W. Klien was the Minnesota Administrator Law Judge appointed in 1992 to collect evidence and provide an opinion to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) as to whether Northern States Power Company (NSP, now known as Xcel) was allowed to store spent nuclear rods in dry casks outside its Prairie Island nuclear power plant.  The Prairie Island power plant is located just outside of the city of Red Wing on an island at the mouth of the Cannon River that had been used for centuries by the Dakota Indians as a village.  The first accounts by white explorers of this village go all the way back to Father Hennepin.

It’s what happened on this island in the early 1990s though that set the stage for one of the most dramatic political battles in Minnesota state history. (more…)