Bill could hit proposed south Minneapolis wood-burning plant like a 2×4

Even if developers of a proposed wood-burning power plant in south Minneapolis can show support from Xcel Energy before a city-imposed March 30 deadline, they face hurdles that may be hard to clear no matter how well connected City Council Member Lisa Goodman and the project’s other investors are. As the Strib’s Steve Brandt reports, in order to close the deal by a separate Oct. 2 deadline, Kandiyohi Development Partners will need, besides the OK from Xcel, proof of financing, neighborhood sign-off and a permit to pollute from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

Those last two could prove the most difficult. Two neighborhoods have pulled out of a Good Neighbor Agreement and oppose the project, and a highly targeted bill now at the Legislature would require the MPCA to analyze the cumulative effects of existing pollution when it considers the project’s permit. Read below the jump for the key language from a stronger House version introduced by Rep. Karen Clark, DFL-Minneapolis, which has a hearing tonight before the Environment and Natural Resources subdivision of the Finance Committee. 

UPDATE: The bill passed on a divided vote and moves to the Finance Committee.

Continued: Click “Read more”Excerpt from House File 3293:

After July 1, 2008, the agency may not issue a permit to a facility without analyzing and considering the cumulative levels and effects of past and current environmental pollution from all sources on the environment and residents of the geographic area within which the facility’s emissions are likely to be deposited, provided that the facility is located in a community in a city of the first class in Hennepin County that meets all of the following conditions: (1) is within a half mile of a site designated by the federal government as an EPA superfund site; (2) a majority of the population are low-income persons of color and American Indians; (3) a disproportionate percent of the children have childhood lead poisoning, asthma, or other environmentally related health problems; (4) is located in a city that has experienced 13 air quality alert days of dangerous air quality for sensitive populations between February 2007 and February 2008; and (5) is located near the junctions of several heavily trafficked state and county highways and two one-way streets which carry both truck and auto traffic.