Save the Date: Cherryland Annual Meeting June16, 2010
Cherryland Cooperative Annual Meeting at Wuerfel Park
Traverse City—Cherryland Energy Cooperative will hold its 72nd Annual Meeting at Wuerfel Park, home of the Traverse City Beach Bums Minor League Baseball Team. Members who attend the meeting will receive a ticket to attend the game, and a voucher for a baseball dinner (hot dog, chips and a soft drink).

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State Readies Wolvering Co-op Coal Ash Hearing | CLICK HERE TO READ THE REPORTS
Michigan—Rogers City resident Joseph Veselenak likes to tell how, decades ago, the school’s football team showed up for practice one day and encountered a bizarre sight. A goal post was tilting crazily: One end of it was literally sinking into the ground. Mr. Veselenak, who coached Rogers City football in the late 1960s and through the ‘70s, immediately knew what the problem was. The goal post was slowly being swallowed by a rare form of geology that is actually quite common in Presque Isle County, where Rogers City is located: a blend of highly porous limestone, sinkholes, and underground caves, streams, and aquifers known collectively as “karst geology.”

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Presque Isle Solid Waste Management Plan Fails Scrutiny PDF
There is no need for the negative impacts of the associated landfill that is now before the Board of Commissioners (“BOC”). As a result, allowing the landfill to be built would violate the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, which prohibits harm to the environment where, as here, cleaner alternatives are feasible and prudent.

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Actual Coal Ash Spill in 2009 | Enlarge

In Rogers City, Strong Criticism of Coal Ash Proposal
Rogers City—A large number of Presque Isle County residents are questioning a plan to store massive amounts of toxic waste from a proposed 600 MW coal-fired power plant in the same giant limestone quarry near Lake Huron where the plant itself would be built. he sharp public opposition to the landfill was the second unpleasant surprise of the day for Wolverine officials: Just a few hours earlier, they had received word that the Michigan Public Service Commission had determined that the company did not need to build a new power plant to meet its customers’ future energy demands.

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Rogers City Plant Flunks “Prudent and Feasible” Test
Great Lakes Bulletin News Service Data submitted to the state by Wolverine Power Cooperative concerning its proposed Rogers City coal plant is deeply flawed, according to a national firm that consults on energy, economic, and environmental topics.

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Wolverine FAILS Alternative Energy Analysis Consideration by State PDF
Wolverine failed to demonstrate the need for the proposed facility as the sole source to meet their projected capacity. In particular, long-term purchase power options were not fully explored as part of their analysis. It should be noted that the majority of Wolverine’s long-term projected capacity need is based upon the expiration of power purchases (540 MW) on or before December 31, 2011. Wolverine has presented no evidence that the capacity currently supporting this existing contract will be unavailable in the future.

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Do Wolverine’s Economic Numbers Add Up?
On May 3, 2008, Wolverine Power Co-op released a preliminary study by Anderson Economic Group predicting how the proposed Roger City coal plant would affect local tax and employment revenues. But according to an analysis by Tom Sanzillo of T.R. Rose Associates, AEG omitted a number of considerations that it used when it studied a proposed Midland plant, as well as Mr. Sanzillo’s previous analysis that conservatively predicts the new Wolverine plant would double the electric rates of its local affiliate, Presque Isle Electric & Gas. All other data comes from PIE&G annual reports.

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Wolverine Mum On Coal Plant’s Price
When Wolverine Power Cooperative announced plans to build a new, coal-burning power plant near Rogers City, the company said it would cost about $1.2 billion. But although a lot has changed in the coal and utility industries since Wolverine’s announcement three years ago, the co-op refuses to publicly discuss how those changes affect its proposed plant’s 2006 price tag. Many financial experts familiar with the energy and coal industries say that those changes have made the cost of new coal power very high, and made investing in new coal plants very risky. That, they say, is why utilities around the United States cancelled approximately 100 new coal plants in recent years, often in favor of less risky, cheaper energy efficiency and renewable energy plans.

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Mich. governor wants utilities to rethink coal
February 3, 2009 LANSING, Mich. - Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants to make it harder for utilities to justify building new coal-fired power plants, encouraging them to instead rely on more energy conservation. Speaking Tuesday in her seventh annual State of the State speech, Granholm called for reducing the state's reliance on electric plants powered by coal and natural gas 45 percent by 2020. The Democrat said she wants to see 100,000 homes and 1,000 schools in the state weatherized to reduce energy consumption, and get more homes and schools to install solar and wind energy systems. She suggested the monthly savings would pay for the cost of the improvements. Some of that weatherization work can be done by people who have lost their jobs, she added. Four companies have requests before the state Department of Environmental Quality to build new coal-fired power plants, the most requests for new coal plants anywhere in the country. The state already has 19 coal-fired plants. In making it harder for companies to build new power plants that rely on coal, Michigan is following the example of other states. Wisconsin officials recently rejected a request for a new coal-fired power plant, and Kansas officials have rejected proposals to build two plants in the southwest corner of the state.

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Cherryland votes to self-regulate
TRAVERSE CITY -- Cherryland Electric Cooperative is the first co-op in Michigan to become self-regulated under a new state law. The board for the Grawn-based utility unanimously voted this week to assume authority for setting its own electric rates. Cherryland members can challenge the move with a petition signed by 5 percent or 750 members of the cooperative, whichever is less, and secure a two-thirds majority vote of the membership to overturn the decision. Cherryland serves around 33,000 members in its six-county service area.

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Energy Cooperative Election Spending: Outrageous
The first thing former school principal Mike Galvin said he’ll do if elected to the board of Intermountain Rural Electric Association, the state’s largest energy co-op, is enact sweeping reform of the election process itself. “IREA spent $500,000 in 2007 to lobby against alternative energies; spent $100,000 in 2006 to purchase the skewed opinions of an industry-paid spokesperson skeptical of climate change warnings; and, spent less than $75,000 to defray energy costs for senior citizens and low income households,” said co-op member and activist David Harlan of Divide. Harlan also accused the co-op of improperly spending funds to support the campaigns of incumbent board members who rubber-stamp the anti-renewable agenda.

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