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Dear Friends & others interested in the
rebuilding of St. Anthony Falls,
or of at least part of it:
I want to alert you all to some rather bad news (which I hope
you will react to within a 30 day comment period; see Note: below).
On
July 31 FERC Staff issued its Draft Environmental Assessment, which
fundamentally deals with what mitigation Xcel should provide in exchange
for a new license to generate hydropower at St. Anthony Falls for the
next (30-50?) years.. In short FERC Staff recommends that Xcel pay
NOT ONE RED CENT toward restoration of the Hennepin Island lower
peninsula and the river left area at the lower lock & Dam (the "lower
falls"). Ironically, this is precisely where Xcel got its start in the
mid-1890s, by damming up the rapids, but our government watchdogs (Xcel
lapdogs?) at FERC staff don't think that 100 years of past use plus 30-50
years of future use should imply an obligation to restore the
brownfield/abandon industrial site which Xcel doesn't propose to use for
hydropower any more.
A short history: In about 1821 soldiers started using water power at
the Falls for a sawmill, adding a flour mill in 1823. The "Falls"
themselves (itself?) was a ledge about 16 feet high & ___ feet wide,
broken up by several islands & outcroppings; below this initial 16 foot
drop there were numerous islands & channels & miscellaneous big chunks of
limestone & sandstone, as the river dropped (drops) another 59 feet in
rapids through the gorge, which stretched for miles. In 1804 Zebulon
Pike reported rapids as far downriver as where near where Ft. snelling
was built; that may have been a high water year, as other reports have
the rapids (& islands & side channels) at least going about to where the
Lake St Bridge is today (today that 74 feet of vertical drop occurs
within about 1/2 mile of river -- divided between 49' at the upper lock &
dam and ~25 feet at the lower lock & dam, about 1/2 mile downriver; all
the islands and side channels are gone).
In any case, St. Anthony Falls is why St. Paul was built: it was the
last good portage before the gorge full of rapids. Similarly, StAF is
why Minneapolis was built: around the hydropower of the falls.
For most of the 1800s, the Falls was the Niagra of the midwest. In 1854
Millard Fillmore led an expedition of east coast adventurers to the edge
of civilization -- the ticket for the Grand Excursion of 1854 states that
its destination is "the Falls of St. Anthony" (i.e. not St. Paul as many
people think). St. Anthony is the only waterfall on the entire
Mississippi. A spa was built below the bluff on the St.
Anthony(East/left) side of the Falls, for tourists to come to on
vacation, as the Falls was the coolest natural formation in the entire
Midwest and beyond.
That environmental/recreational gem was eliminated in the mid-1890s when
the St. Anthony Falls Water Power Co dammed up the rapids and developed
a hydro plant at what we now call the "lower falls"(1/4 mile below the
Stone Arch Bridge). In1908 it built the Hennepin Island plant (at the
'upper falls', just upstream from the SABridge). Both plants were
leased to the Twin Cities Rapid Transit Co to generate power for the St.
Paul-Minneapolis trolly/interurban system. In other words, the power
company (which morphed to NSP in 1923) was given its license (and
permission to eliminate the natural river features) specifically to use
the power for public transportation, for the public benefit of the people
who lived nearby. With the demise of electric trollys(ies?) NSP no
longer was required to provide power for the benefit of the public &
since the 1950s has simply sold the electricity on the open market. But
the whole operation was effectively financed by public contracts to buy
the electricity.
In other words, in the 1890s the power company was permitted to eliminate
the rapids & islands (i.e. it took away an environmental and recreational
wonderland) in order to generate power for public transportation.
In 1987 the 'lower' plant was undermined by the river & taken down. NSP
built a damn upstream from where the plant had been & decided it was not
economical to rebuild the plant. A couple years ago the Army COE told
NSP/Xcel to fill in the hole where the plant had been, but otherwise for
the last 16 years NSP/Xcel has left that prime piece of riverfront as a
forgotten brownfield. Now the license is up for renewal (one license for
both both power plants). Xcel wants to keep a license for the Upper
Falls, but wants to wash its hands of the Lower Falls area.
The FERC Staff draft EA estimates that Xcel will generate over $2.4
million worth of power per year at the Falls, p. 63 (from a plant long
ago built & paid for). Federal law requires that FERC give equal
consideration to non-power issues (i.e. environmental & recreational) as
to power issues when it sets conditions for a hydro license, p.66.
According to the staff draft EA "Accordingly, any license issued shall be
best adapted to a comprehensive plan for improving or developing a
waterway for all beneficial public uses" p. 66. The draft EA also
admits that "the Whitewater Park concept proposed by various entitites
would provide significantly increased recreation opportunities in the
area" p. 50.
Therefore, the question becomes: In exchange for a license to use most
of the only waterfall on the Mississippi (for another 30-50 years?), how
much should Xcel's owners be obligated to improve or develop the waterway
"for all beneficial public uses" as the law requires??? Should a 30-50
year licensee be obligated to restore a small bit of the magnificant
environment which it eliminated 100 years ago, to participate in what
could be the biggest recreational enhancement on the entire Missississpi
River; or should Xcel get a 30-50 year license while at the same time
leaving that environmenal/recreational area as an abandon industrial site
in the heart of the Cities?
FERC Staff thinks Xcel should be able to walk away from the landfill at
the lower Falls, AND get a license to pretty much control the entirety of
the upper and lower Falls areas for another 30-50 years, and pay nothing
save making a few walking paths & such on upper Hennepin Island.
Hopefully that FERC Staff position -- that private industry not only can
cavelierly leave a brownfield in the middle of the most environmentally &
recreationally important part of the river without paying toward
environmental or recreational mitigation of the area, but also be given
another 30-50 year license for use of the Falls hydro power -- hopefully
that proposition sounds as preposterous to you all as it does to the many
groups which have weighed in on the issue (MCNC, Marcy-Holmes; MParks &
REc Bd, City Council, Friends of the Miss., Rivers Council of Minn.,
Nat'l Rivers Council, American Canoe Assn, and many more).
There are numerous other things wrong with this FERC Staff Draft EA (e.g.
it accuses the Parks & Rec Board of walking away from negotiations with
Xcel, when indeed exactly the opposite happened, etc.).
Note: There is a 30 day period for comments on FERC Staff's Draft
E.A.(DEA). I encourage all of you, and any affiliated groups, to
contact FERC with your comments.
Just as important, write Senator Coleman and Senator Dayton asking them
them to add their own comments to the mix.
The Staff Draft E.A. can be accessed via the net, but they don't make it
easy. The July 31 Notice says "A copy of the DEA... may be viewed on
the Commission's website at http://www.ferc.gov using the "FERRIS" link.
Enter the docket number [Project No. 2056]... to access the document.
For assistance, contact FERC Online Support ata
FERCOnlineSuppport@ferc.gov or toll-free at 1-866-208-3676..."
"Any comment should be filed within 30 days from the date of this notice
[July 31, 03] and should be addressed to Magalie R. Salas, Secretary,
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, N.E. Washington,
D.C. 20426. Please affix 'St. Anthony Fall Project No. 2056-016' to all
comments... " Comments may be filed electronically, supposedly via
instructions at the FERC website under the "e-filing" link.
Remember, this FERC process may set the scene for who controls the Falls
and who benefits from the Falls for the next 30-50 years. Effectively
we are saying that Xcel should pay toward mitigation of the Falls as a
condition of a new license. The City and the Parks Board have proposed
that its mitigation total $8 million. Yet their (Xcel's & FERC Staff's)
proposal for 130-150 years of use of St. Anthony Falls is only worth
something between $1 to $2 million. That is grossly insufficient. This
is the same company which gave outgoing president Jim Howard a retirement
package worth over $7 million when he left (just before the NRG debacle).
This is the same company which paid in the neighborhood of $80 million
for naming rights for Xcel Energy Center. This is the same company which
Colorado wants to fine $5 million for dishonest outage reports, and which
perhaps has been giving similarly dishonest reports to Minnesota
regulators. The people of the Midwest deserve better, or Xcel should
not be granted a license to generate power at St. Anthony Falls. FERC
should get comments to that effect.
Bill Tilton
651-224-7687
MWPDC Office: 101 E. 5th St. #2220, St. Paul, MN 55101
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