Quick, fire off some comments on the Wisconsin Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

You can find the document at the ERFsite – go to www.psc.wi.gov, scroll down the screen to where you enter a docket number, and enter “05-CE-136” and then scroll down to the DEIS.  Scroll down to November 8, 2011, for the pieces of the DEIS.

Most important is the narrative, and Volume 2 is the maps, they’re quite large.

Here are most of the chapters, I had trouble with Chapter 8, so it’s not there, that’s the Q-1 Galesville Route, you have to go to the ERF site, as above, to get it.

Chapter 0 – Executive Summary

Chapter 1 – Overview – Regulatory

Chapter 2 – Need

Chapter 3 – Potential System Solutions

Chapter 4 – Mississippi River – Holmen Description & Alternatives

Chapter 5 – Environmental Impacts and Mitigation

Chapter 6 – New Briggs Substation

Chapter 7 – Q-1 Hwy 35  Route

Chapter 8 – trouble downloading

Chapter 9 – Q-1 Hwy 88 Route

Chapter 10 – Arcadia Route

Chapter 11 – Ettrick

Chapter 12 – Summary and Comparison of Impacts

I had high hopes for this DEIS.  Silly me.

An important but simple thing to note in your comments — THEY’VE GOT THE NAME WRONG!!!!  As in Minnesota, the Applicants applied for a project called the “Hampton-Rochester-LaCrosse Transmission Project.”  That’s easy to remember, it’s the start, middle and end of the line they’re proposeing.  But look at the DEIS – it’s entitled:

Alma-LaCrosse 345kV Transmission Project

SAY WHAT?!?!?!?!  Where does that “Alma-LaCrosse” come from — there’s not even a substation planned for Alma! That’s not the name of this project!

And it gets worse from there.  Here’s a part that really sticks in my craw:

The applicants’ decision on the proposed crossing was reinforced during the state of Minnesota EIS scoping process in the spring of2010.  The Minnesota Office of Energy Security (OES) convened two advisory task forces and a public scoping comment period on the issues and route alternatives that should be evaluated in the Minnesota EIS.  If the comments from the task forces and the public did not indicate that the LaCrosse crossing should be reevaluated in addition to the Alma crossing, then the scope of the Minnesota EIS would include the Alma crossing as the only crossing. The OES scoping decision in August 2010 confirmed the Alma crossing as the one to be carried through the two states’ review processes.  See appendix D, the Executive Summary of the Minnesota EIS, page 1 .

Wisconsin PSC DEIS, p. 36 (emphasis added).

HUH???   There is NO basis for this paragraph, ZERO.  It’s utterly false.  The Applicant’s decision to present only one option for a Mississippi River crossing was NOT “reinforced,” it was loudly challenged, and over and over and over in the Scoping Comments and by the Task Force, there were demands that there be more than one option.  And it gets worse:

If the comments from the task forces and the public did not indicate that the LaCrosse crossing should be reevaluated in addition to the Alma crossing, then the scope of the Minnesota EIS would include the Alma crossing as the only crossing.

Come on, folks, what’s the basis for this!??!  I was there, and it just doesn’t exist.   The Task Force “facilitator” tried to boot me out of the meeting when a Task Force member asked why there was only one Mississippi River crossing, and I dared, DARED, to state that USDA’s RUS is reviewing 3 Mississippi River Crossings, at Alma, Winona and LaCrosse.

I’m asking you to leave…

…sigh… so now, what do we comment on?

I’d focus on noting whether all potential impacts are laid out, and look for EVALUATION, and ANALYSIS, not just a laundry list of what the impacts might be.

To make this a little easier, check this out:

COMMENT FORM

Now get to work!

Here’s what the