By Rep. Paul Anderson
Last week’s weather certainly reinforced the notion that it can change quickly in Minnesota. Temps well below zero as late as Thursday gave way to relatively balmy conditions over the weekend that saw highs in the 30s. After experiencing the brutal conditions, especially those on Tuesday and Wednesday, it almost seemed spring-like when the winds died down and the mercury poked above zero.
I can’t ever recall a more wicked combination of cold temps and high winds, conditions that led to near-record breaking wind chills. At 7 a.m. on Jan. 30, Melrose had the distinction of the lowest temp in the area with a -38 degree reading. The night before, Alexandria experienced the lowest wind chill at -63, with Benson right behind at -62. I had to come home that evening to check on water pipes in our farm house. The drive home after dark was challenging, especially the stretch between Sauk Centre and Glenwood. Visibility on the freeway coming home was OK, but it was a totally different story on Highway 28. Near white-out conditions at times, coupled with rock-hard drifts across the road, made for some slow going.
I started to count the stranded rigs along the freeway. The number reached 11 by the time I got to the St. Cloud area. Couldn’t imagine a worse job than lifting the hood on a truck that night or simply hooking up and pulling it to a heated shop. Visited with a trucker in Sauk Centre who had counted 30 stalled rigs and vehicles on his way from Fargo!
Heard a weather man on the radio explain that the method used to figure wind chill was changed in the year 2002. And had we used the chart in effect back then to figure wind chill this past week, the numbers would have been approaching -90!
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I’ve long maintained that our state needs to be competitive with our neighboring states in terms of tax policy and business regulation. We recently saw another example of how that’s not the case when a company headquartered in Marshall, called TruShrimp, announced it was moving its first shrimp-growing facility from Luverne, Minn., to Madison, S.D. One of the main reasons given was the inability to come to agreement with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency on a water quality regulation dealing with the “specific conductance” of its discharge water. The regulation doesn’t deal directly with the amount of salt in the water, but with how quickly an electric current passes through water.
The University of Minnesota, back in 2010, came out with a finding that the MPCA wasn’t applying the test correctly. Some would even say that the test is not relevant. But because the company and the MPCA, after nearly two years, couldn’t come to agreement over this test, TruShrimp said they could wait no longer and announced the move to South Dakota. That’s a major investment leaving our state, along with a number of jobs. This incident should tell us that we need to improve our permitting process and make it easier to grow or expand business in Minnesota. We hear the same story from ethanol plants, wanting to either expand or simply renew their air quality or water permits.
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Received the 2018 annual report from a group called the Minnesota Freight Advisory Committee. It listed the top three foreign nations that import goods to our state. Not surprisingly, they are China, with over $11 billion worth of goods coming here, followed by Canada at $9.5 billion, and then Mexico at nearly $2 billion. The top three destinations for Minnesota exports are also those same three nations, with Canada being the largest at $4.2 billion.
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