SPEAK OUT ARIZONA Dave Hawknis DO OVER

Full Credit to Dave Hawkins, January 23rd 2010, 12:41p.m.

POWER PLANT DEVELOPER ASKS FOR RECONSIDERATION OF FAVORABLE HEARING OUTCOME

By Dave Hawkins

It's a very unique and complicated circumstance. Mohave Sun Power has a favorable recommendation from Arizona Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee, but it is essentially asking the Committee to reconsider.

The Line Siting Committee conducted a lengthy hearing in Kingman January 12 and 13, voting to recommend that the Arizona Corporation Commission approve the Certificate of Environmental Compatibility required for Mohave Sun Power to build the 340-megawatt Hualapai Valley Solar (HVS) facility 27 miles north of Kingman.

Eight days after the vote, HVS asked the Committee to reconvene the hearing to address possible procedural errors. The concerns are that the Line Siting Committee and its Chairman Tom Foreman, a retired judge who serves as an assistant Arizona Attorney General, possibly violated the Arizona Open Meeting Law and improper denial of citizen requests for hearing participation as intervenors.

``We just want to be sure that no procedural issues get in the way of our progress and getting our CEC," said HVS Project Manager Greg Bartlett. ``We don't want any procedural stuff to screw up our good project."

Tim Hogan, Executive Director for the Law in the Public Interest, said he raised procedural issues with HVS' legal counsel after he read transcripts detailing the two day hearing in Kingman. Hogan has been advising activist Denise Bensusan and contends she was improperly denied intervenor status to participate in the hearing.

The Line Siting Committee rejected intervenor status for Bensusan and Susan Bayer. The women were allowed to provide input as citizens but they were prohibited from cross examining witnesses and calling their own witnesses at the hearing.

``HVS requests that the Committee reconsider intervention in this case," HVS attorney Thomas Campbell wrote in his application for reconsideration of intervention request. ``Granting intervention would be consistent with Commission practice to encourage intervention and would remove any concerns about the individuals' participation."

Hogan said HVS, no doubt, is worried that the intervention denial could be an issue when the Arizona Corporation Commission takes up the Line Siting Committee recommendation in the future.

``They're obviously concerned that if this matter goes to the Commission that the Commission is not going to be real supportive of the idea of denying intervention to citizens who have something to say about these projects," Hogan said.

Campbell's request also questions Foreman's dictate that citizens were prohibited from tape recording the hearing unless they recorded it in its entirety and provided transcripts to the Committee. ``The Open Meeting Law allows 'any person in attendance' at an open meeting to record the meeting with a 'tape recorder' or by any other means, unless there is 'active interference with the conduct of the meeting," Campbell's pleading stated.

Hogan said Foreman's dictate was wrong. ``Citizens have the right to tape record an open meeting, period!" Hogan said.

Foreman has addressed the tape recording and intervention issues in a procedural order response to the HVS petition to reopen the hearing.

``After consultation with a member of the Open Meeting Law Enforcement Team of the Arizona Attorney General's Office, it appears the inadvertant erroneous statement (tape recording dictate) of the Chairman may be technical and not require ratification," Foreman wrote. ``However, the Applicant should not be placed in the position of having to assume the risk that a reviewing court would agree, and the request for ratification appears to be a reasonable option for the Committee to consider."

The HVS request that the Chairman's tape recording dictate be "ratified" has been set for Committee consideration during a January 27 hearing in Goodyear. The Committee will also consider the intervention matter during the same hearing.

``If the Committee allowed the two individuals who asked to intervene in the hearing to now intervene, as requested by the Applicant, it would reopen the evidentiary portion of the hearing so the new interveners could cross-examine all the witnesses who have already testified, and call the witnesses they wish to call," Foreman said in his Procedural Order. ``This would presumably require at least one more day of evidentiary hearing and perhaps significantly more. It is unclear whether the resumed evidentiary hearing should be held in Kingman."

Foreman also stated that the Committee must consider whether HVS waived any right to apply for reconsideration because company officials did not object when intervention was denied. Similarly Foreman noted that HVS took no position when the tape recording dictate was imposed.

Hualapai Valley Solars Reconsideration Request Denied

By DAVE HAWKINS

Activists Denise Bensusan and Susan Bayer remain on the outside looking in. For a second time, they've been rejected in their attempt to gain status as "intervenors" in a hearing involving a solar power plant proposed at Red Lake, some 27 miles north of Kingman.

The Arizona Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee denied the intervention request when the Committee conducted a January 12 and 13 hearing in Kingman involving the Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC) that Mohave Sun Power needs to develop its Hualapai Valley Solar (HVS) facility. When granted status, intervenors can formally participate in the Line Siting Committee hearing, and call and question witnesses who testify regarding the CEC request.

The company itself, HVS, questioned the propriety of intervention denial following the hearing. HVS asked the Committee to reconsider its decision regarding Bensusan and Bayer's involvement and reopen the concluded hearing, if necessary.

The Committee took up the matter again Wednesday. And the Committee again rejected any formal participation by the women.

Tim Hogan, the Director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, represents Bensusan and said he's not giving up yet.

He said he doesn't understand, and takes issue with the Committee decision.

``It seems like they believe they have pretty much unfettered discretion to determine who gets to intervene and who doesn't," Hogan said. He said the Committee, historically, has been quite liberal in granting various parties' intervenor status.

Hogan said he's researching options in considering further contesting the intervenor determination.

The Committee will reconvene early next month to address another issue arising from the mid-January hearing in Kingman. HVS and Hogan both questioned Committee Chairman John Foreman's dictate involving use of tape recorders at the hearing.

Foreman told citizens with tape recorders they could not tape the hearing unless they taped the proceeding in its entirety and

prepared word-for-word transcripts for the Committee members. HVS and Hogan suggested the dictate may be out of step, if not in violation of the Arizona Open Meeting Law.

Any perception or possibility that the law was violated could taint the Committee recommendation to issue the CEC to HVS. Any taint would be cleansed when the Committee reconvenes the hearing and ratifies its previous vote.

Jan. 26, 2010
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Major solar power plant proposed

By DAVE HAWKINS
SPECIAL TO THE LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Renewable Energy

KINGMAN, Ariz. -- A solar power plant being billed as the largest in the United States is being proposed for a site outside Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

Lake Havasu-based Needle Mountain Power LLC wants to build on a 10,300- acre site near the junction of Interstate 40 and State Route 95, which had been proposed for the master-planned community of Sterling.

The massive plant would cost $5 billion to $6 billion to build and could generate up to 1,200 megawatts of electricity, according to consulting engineer Michael Clinton. By comparison, the solar array on 140 acres of Nellis Air Force Base land generates 15 megawatts. Needle Mountain Power has an option to purchase the property pending approvals of various permits.

"I really believe the permits are the significant issues," Clinton said. "But I think we're positioned to where our permitting process is going to be far less complex than any of the others that are out there today."

The ability to connect to the Western Arizona Power Administration transmission lines that cross the parcel is a plus, he said, because it minimizes need for the type of environmental study needed if the connection line had to travel across public or private lands. The company plans to use photovoltaic and other water-friendly technology that should reduce opposition to the project, he said.

Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson said the plant will offer construction jobs, operating jobs and an increased tax base.

"The size of it is obviously a feather in the cap for Mohave County and the state of Arizona, if we're able to get this plant located here," Johnson said.