Midtown Eco Energy
From:
Carol Greenwood
Date:
Jun 15 19:34 UTC
Short link
Keep in mind that we are downwind from the Southeast Minneapolis
Industrial area (see below).
Carol Greenwood
This is a letter from Paula Connell, the PCA coordinator for the Midtown
Project.
I'm sure you've already heard, but I thought I'd notify you officially
that Kandiyohi has withdrawn their Midtown Eco Energy project;
therefore, we will no longer be working onthe environmental review, air
permit or request for contested case hearing. We heard from them earlier
this week. I've already contacted Nancy Hone and Carol Pass and told
them the same thing. We will also be sending out a very short letter to
everyone on our mailing list telling them this too.
Paula J. Connell, P.E.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
520 Lafayette Rd
St. Paul, MN 55155
(651) 282-2605
fax (651) 296-8717
*This is an excellent article published in the Minnesota Independent
(formerly Minnesota Monitor) by Chris Stellar, formerly the editor for
the bridge. Thanks, Chris.*
Wood-burning power plant seeks new Minneapolis home
</article/2008/06/10/city-hall-monitor-wood-burning-power-plant-seeks-new-minneapolis-home.html#comments>Print
this page
</article/2008/06/10/city-hall-monitor-wood-burning-power-plant-seeks-new-minneapolis-home.html&print=1>
Reprint rights
</article/2008/06/10/city-hall-monitor-wood-burning-power-plant-seeks-new-minneapolis-home.html&reprint=true>
By Chris Steller , Minnesota Independent <http://minnesotaindependent.com/>
June 13, 2008
A weekend report that developers of the proposed Midtown Eco-Energy
power plant had given up on putting a wood-burning power plant in the
East Phillips neighborhood of south Minneapolis raised cheers among
neighbors whose initial approval had turned to opposition. But the
story’s suggestion that the project might move to southeast Minneapolis
raised eyebrows and hackles among residents there, who stand ready to
raise hell if the idea proves more than a passing thought.
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com>
* Minnesota Monitor is now The Minnesota Independent
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4222>
* Video: O'Reilly Factor ambush on Moyers backfires at media
conference
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4221>
* Franken wins DFL endorsement
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4220>
* DFL Convention: Let the balloting begin!
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4219>
* DFL convention: Franken v. Nelson-Pallmeyer
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4218>
* Lowe's ads get OK in Minneapolis parks
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4217>
* Howard Dean addresses DFL convention
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4215>
* Klobuchar on Franken
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4216>
* Senate committee: Bush misled public on Iraq intelligence
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4214>
* North Dakota is the Saudi Arabia of... oil
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4213>
* The Uptake's update
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4212>
* Friday Financials: How to put you money where your mouth is.
Literally.
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4211>
* Media Monitor: Ask a 'stupid' question...
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4210>
* You don't know Jack: Can Nelson-Pallmeyer beat Franken for the DFL
nomination?
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4209>
* U of M grain disease research threatened by U.S. ag policies
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4208>
* Convenient: RNC's Obama attack ignores convention planner's own
Rezko baggage
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4207>
* Religious rights or classroom disruption? Student sues over
anti-abortion shirts
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4206>
* Campaign songs: The good, the bad, and the ABBA
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4202>
* VP or not VP: Pawlenty raises his national profile
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4205>
* Central Corridor rail: Traffic, parking a game of inches
<http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4204>
Steve Brandt’s Saturday Star Tribune story cited City Council Member
Gary Schiff as saying Kandiyohi Development Partners had suggested the
Southeast Minneapolis Industrial (SEMI) area as a new site for the
burner. That was after the developers announced they were throwing in
the towel on a city-owned site in the East Phillips neighborhood. The
proposal there had drawn neighborhood opposition as well as a new bill
that Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed into law targeting the project for special
state studies on cumulative effects of pollution.
But by suggesting a new site in southeast Minneapolis, developers
stumbled into a place where one cumulative effect of decades of
pollution is organized opposition to more of it. The Prospect Park
neighborhood has weathered many long struggles with polluters, including
a battle with the American Can Co. that ended in one of the city’s
earliest Good Neighbor agreements between residents and industry.
Nearby, the Southeast Como neighborhood has had its own environmental
coordinator, Justin Eibenholtzl, on staff for seven years. Over that
time Eibenholtzl set up an online inventory of industrial sites, helped
lead the successful effort to get Xcel Energy to switch from coal to gas
at its Twin Cities riverside plants, and recently snagged a McKnight
Foundation grant to establish Como as a “Green Village“—a plan
Kandiyohi’s project would be at odds with.
It wouldn’t fit the city’s plan for the SEMI area (PDF, 6.8 MB) either,
according to Jim Forsyth, senior project coordinator at Community
Planning and Economic Development Department (CPED). SEMI also lacks
city-owned property that might make it a match for the East Phillips
site. Both sites do, however, lie within the city’s Empowerment Zone, a
federal job-growing program that Kandiyohi’s Kim Havey once led for the
city. Havey’s ties to Minneapolis government, as well as those of
Kandiyohi principal Michael Krause (a former city planning commissioner)
and investor Lisa Goodman (a current City Council member), led to media
reports (Daily Planet, Strib)that in turn led the city to look for gaps
in its ethics policy.
The latest news of the project’s potential relocation took residents by
surprise. “People will get fired up,” promised Eibenholtzl, a veteran
environmental battler who said keeping Kandiyohi out of SEMI is one
fight he hopes will go away on its own. “I hope this [project] will die
its 1001st death,” he said.
In an interview today, Schiff told Minnesota Independent he wouldn’t
support a SEMI location. City Council Member Scott Benson, who also
attended Kandiyohi’s Friday meeting with Schiff, told the Minnesota
Independent on Monday that the way he remembered it, SEMI came up in
conversation as containing land with the increasingly rare industrial
“I-3” city zoning, but he downplayed the significance of its mention and
denied that the city was offering new sites as a quid pro quo for
Kandiyohi dropping the Midtown plan. The meeting, Benson said he
gathered, is one of a series Kandiyohi has set up with City Council
members. Kandiyohi didn’t return a request for comment for this story.
.