Although we still await the details, the decision by Xcel to convert three of its metro plants from coal to gas and to install pollution reduction equipment in the fourth is significant. Initially, my concern is the 2009 time table for Riverside conversion, but for today, let's relish the moment. The air in the Twin Cities will become cleaner by significant amounts.
This moment belongs to the people. It is because more than 100 people showed up at the November 2001 Xcel permit hearing and 200 or more sent in written comments that this happened, make no mistake. It is because a coalition of neighborhoods, environmental groups and individuals worked hard to get people to the meeting, prepare fact sheets, talk to the press and stand their ground. Candy Sartell mentioned the work of the Mississippi Corridor Neighborhood Coalition (MCNC). Yes, we were there in 1995 when we published our Environmental Inventory detailing 675 pollution sources in the upper river corridor of Minneapolis. We were at the last NSP (Xcel) permit hearing when only a few people attended. We were pretty much written off then as crack pots and trouble makers (we love compliments). In those intervening years, many other individuals and community groups, along with environmental groups, begin talking to each other and focusing their energy on the Xcel coal plants. It worked. It was not MCNC alone, by any means, but we wuz there when no one else was. Today, we can thank the Clean Energy Now Coaltion: Paula Maccabee of Sierra Club, Andrea Kiepe of Clean Water Action, the (St. Paul) West SIde CItizens Organization (especially Christopher Childs, Elizabeth Dickinson and Mary Petrie), Justin Eibenholtzl, environmental coordinator for SE Como Improvement Association and all SE neighborhoods, Jake Jacobi of SECIA and MCNC, Amy Luesebrink of MCNC and many other laborers in the vineyard who pulled this off. Additionally, many legislators have helped push legislation to aid this cause: Carlos Mariani, Linda Higgins, Larry Pogemiller, Jean Wagenius and others. Xcel should be congratulated for its action. However, it took 30 years (since the Clean Air Act) and a lotta citizen activism to make it happen. Fran Guminga Bottineau, Ward 3 member of MCNC _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
