Thursday, April 07, 2011

A REALLY WINDY ISSUE

Just before I moved back to Montana in 1999 from Portland, Oregon, I was working as the clerical support for the City of Portland Site Development department.  One of the city’s struggles was with the concept of “takings,” which was just catching fire.  If the team required that a wetland behind a projected supermarket be retained to catch run-off, the supermarket would declare that the city was depriving them of the potential profit from building on that area and demand payment for it.  It was sort of the reverse of condemnation -- that is, usually land-owners are paid when land is taken by the larger jurisdiction for the greater good of the community.  But this was part of the good design for the site.  It was such a new idea that when Brian Kahn (an environmental lawyer) and I talked about it, he didn’t believe it.  Now he does.
Larry Salois was my UPS man -- he has retired just now, partly to keep track of his lawsuit against the Montana-Alberta Tie Line -- high tension electricity lines across his mother’s property.  (She’s has Alzheimers and is in a nursing home.)  When he went out to see where the survey line ran, it crossed a wetland and was placed where it would disturb tipi rings, an ancient camping spot.  Both of these things, according to the negotiated rules, were not supposed to happen.  Larry was willing to accept a contract for the tie-line to cross his mother’s property, but he wanted it moved over -- not a lot, but enough to miss the wetland and tipi rings.  The company refused, afraid of having to redesign and jigger its line so much that they would lose some of their profit.
Larry is Metis (that’s why the French name -- he’s descended from the Red River people who come from a mix of Indians and early trappers) and he’s a bug for history, so we’ve talked more than just saying, “Sign here!”  I’ve taught relatives of his and worked with others.  MATL was operating under the assumption that 1) he was just a dumb Indian and 2) what he wanted was money.  Their assumptions were big city white guy attitudes.  This has been underlined by a letter in the Great Falls Tribune rebuking Hertha Lund, the lawyer who won the case against MATL that brought them to a standstill by blocking public condemnation of the land.  The tone of it was patronizing and irrelevant, calling her down for being “rude” to such important people as them.
When I left Montana the last time in 1991, Montana Power was a stable organization, the pride of the state.  Then they got computer fever and like gold strikers sold off much of the company in order to chase the cyber-bubble.  At the same time the power industry quietly de-regulated.  If they attracted any attention, they sent up a great flurry of protestations that they were only trying to make the state “business friendly.”  Yeeeaaaas.  VERY friendly.
So here I sit in Valier, within eyeshot of a huge wind farm, while Northwestern has not maintained or modernized the major transformers that feed the town well enough to keep them from bursting into flames.  I kid my cousin that my house is one step above camping out and she, having visited me, says,  “And that’s when your electricity works!”  Brown-outs are common, some of them bad enough to burn out refrigerators, furnace motors, computers and the fancy embroidery machines at Pony Impressions.  Insurance was balky.  

So do I really care whether Calgary or California needs more electricity?  Not a whole lot.  Let them conserve.  California, if you care to remember, is where some electrical plants were taken off line for “maintenance” in order to jack up prices during a heat wave that brought in a bonanza of AC use.  Kind of hard on some of the older folks down there.
Anyway, back to Montana.  Since “the dumb Indian who was just holding out for more money” turned out to be a shrewd Metis with a tough female lawyer -- not quite the thin edge of the wedge the big boys had hoped to intimidate as an example -- someone with good connections in the legislature thought of just passing a law giving MATL the right to seize land using condemnation law.  By this time the landowners further to the south and in other states had begun to figure it all out.  There is now a specialty law company that takes these cases, increasing expertise and resources to say nothing of public attention.
One of the most interesting aspects of MATL is that it is international  and its owners are at least in part not American.  So the benefit of the eminent domain would be for a private corporation in a foreign country.  An international corporation is trumping state and nation, overriding local benefit.  They are trying to set a precedent for several transmission lines, all pointed out of state, that will make the company “too big to fail” or regulate.
Here’s a quote from Brad Molnar, a four-term Montana legislator and currently the vice chairman of the Montana Public Service Commission:
If half of the capacity on MSTI  and Path 8 [other tie-lines] is filled with our current supplies we will be about 50 percent short to fill the needs of NorthWestern Energy’s residential customers and our industrial base. To replace this with a new 1000MW coal plant (like that is possible) would be in excess of $1 billion. And another billion dollars for new transmission lines to serve us as our current capacity would be exhausted shipping our legacy power out of state. Treason would look different in what respect?”
Strange world when an international corporation can come into Montana, not to dig up our copper, but to “take” our wind (originally touted as a way of sparing us from air pollution) in order to necessitate that our coal be dug up for a “takings” that will be our very breath.  Of course, the time is ripe.  People are worried about the economy.  In small towns people think,  “Hey!  If a bunch of wind farm guys move in here, I could probably rent my mother-in-law’s house to them now that she’s gone.  I could get the kids through college with that little extra boost.”  No one has a clear plan for twenty years in the future when the turbines begin to fail.
Here’s a quote from the Billings Gazette for April 5:
“Senate Republicans are floating a new proposal to break the legislative logjam over landowner rights vs. property condemnation powers of transmission line developers — but so far they’re not finding any takers.
“A House member who’s been pushing for stronger landowner rights said Tuesday that the proposal has some positive elements but still gives a green light to the Montana Alberta Tie Limited (MATL) power line to condemn property along its north-central Montana route.
“‘I’m not interested in the Legislature resolving the court suit,’ said Rep. Kelly Flynn, R-Townsend, referring to a legal battle blocking MATL’s condemnation power.
“‘I think that would be best decided by the Montana Supreme Court.’”
Take THAT, Montana-Alberta Tie Line, international corporation!

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