MONTICELLO, Minn. – The leak of radioactive waste water from the Monticello nuclear plant in November occurred when a pipe between two buildings burst. This detail has been confirmed, four months after the leak, by Xcel Energy, the plant’s owner. In the intervening four months, Xcel said, it has recovered 100,000 gallons of spilled tritium-containing water. The company still has 300,000 gallons to go. The company said it may install a permanent solution this spring. Also, above-ground storage tanks may be built for the contaminated water as it is it recovered. Other options are to treat, reuse or fully disposal of the collected water, the company said, but wasn’t specific. The leak wasn’t the first at the 50-year-old Monticello  plant. Trace amounts were lost in 2009.

Xcel profile

Xcel was created in1998 in a merger of power companies, most notably Northern State Power of Minneapolis. There are 3.7 million customers in eight states. Annual revenue: $1.5 billion. In 2018 Xcel announced a goal of delivering 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050, the first major U.S. utility to do so. The company is publicly traded on the Nasdaq exchange in New York City. The company has 11,300 employees. The president of Xcel is Bob Frenze, a financial guy who joined the company in 2016 from the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs. These are company executives with the most responsibility for compliance with regulatory agencies, for operations, and for media relations and public relations.

> Brett Carter, chief customer relations officer.

> Tim O’Connor, chief operations officer.

> Tim Peterson, chief technical officer.

> Amanda Rome, compliance officer.

Predecessor companies. Go back to 1904.

Earlier: Monticello nuclear plant leaks tritium-tainted water

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona man reported another guy, whom he didn’t know, smashed his car window with a brick. This was in the 700 block of Jimmy Carter Place near the Bob Welch Aquatic Center on the West End. The man told police he hadn’t had any beef with anyone that would explain the incident.

WINONA, Minn. – A woman who was stopped for a traffic violation had other things going, police said. Her blood-alcohol tests at 0.12% — 1-1/2 more than legally allowed for driving. Lydia Opiew Obang, 20, of Savage, was charged with driving under the influence. The stop was aboiut 12:40 a.m. at Second and Johnson streets downtown about bar closing time.

Baseball: UW-LaCrosse 9, Paterson 7

Tennis (men): Saint Mary’s 8, Concordia of Moorhead 2

Tennis (women): Concordia of Moorhead 5, Saint Mary’s 4

Basketball (boys): St. Louis Park Benilde-St. Margarets Red Knights 66, Stewartville Tigers 60

ELEVA, Wis– The driver of a pickup truck was hurt in a crash south of Eleva and taken to an Eau Claire hospital. The injuries were described as non-life threatening. A child, age 5, was uninjured. The accident was about 9:30 p.m. on Hiughway 93 near Hansen Lane. Deputies said the pickup truck was heading north toward Eleva when the driver lost control on ice and rolled over. Sheriff Brett Semingson declined to release the names of the driver or child.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The state’s unemployment rate was 2.9% for January, in line with the previous month. The state Employment and Economic Development Department reported that the rate continues better than the national 3.4%. Kevin McKinnon, the agency’s commissioner, said the latest figures show that Minnesota still has a tight labor market. For southeast Minnesota counties, listed by workforce size:

> Olmsted County (workforce 90.800): 2.5%.

> Winona County (28,200): 2.6%.

> Wabasha County (12,200): 3.9%.

> Fillmore County (11,000): 4.2%.

> Houston County (10,500): 3.7%.

Help wanted everywhere.  Worker shortage spikes hourly pay. At fast food places like McDonald’s it’s $15 to start. It’s the same down the road at Pizza Hut. Burger King offers $17 for shift managers. Image: Steve Lunde

Problematic warmer day. Cause apparently was a space heater n a back bedroom. Image: Pine Island Fire Department

Fire crews needeed  to drag hoses 50 yards

PINE ISLAND, Minn. – Firefighters had a heckuva time with a burning pre-built home on a remote hillside west of Pine Island. There were no hydrants for water. The mud was so thick that a tanker truck with water from Pine Island couldn’t get close. By the time crews pulled hoses 50 yards from the tanker, half the structure had collapsed. In the end, 4-1/2 hours later, the house was a total loss. The good news: No one was home to be injured. Several firefighters, however, suffered bumps and bruises falling in the mud. The fire was reported by a neighbor about 1:30 p.m. at 50199 154th Avenue.

WINONA, Minn. – St. Patrick’s Day turned out a whole lot less green for a Huff Street party hostess. The woman told police that $1,000 was missing from a dresser, probably taken the evening before. The hostess explained that she had eight friends over for a party but that she was confident that none of them would have done it. The woman lives the 550 block of Huff Street.

WINONA, Minn. – A police officer spotted a 2008 Toyota Sonata with a little body damage and put two and two together. The officer asked the owner, a 94-year-old woman, if she had hit another car the day before and driven off. Yes, she explained: No one was around. She then did the right thing and honked  to get someone’s attention. Nobody responded. So she drove home. The officer arranged for both car owners to exchange insurance information. No ticket was issued.

CAMBRIDGE, Wis. – The nudity-required Valley View Recreation Club near Koshkonong Creek has scheduled its annual car show for August 12. No cameras allowed, the club said. Other summer events: Naked mile race with body painting, August 5, and naked volleyball, July 1 and 26 and August 27. Registration.

Campground. Seventeen acres 22 miles west of Madison.

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. –A Minnesota State trooper was hurt when his squad car was struck by another vehicle. Trooper Matthew Carlson, 31, was taken nine miles to a St. Cloud hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The accident was on Interstate 94 near St. Joseph just before 6 a.m. The State Patrol said Carlson was parked with his emergency lights at a crash in the median. A second car driven by Mark Hoffman, 49, of St. Cloud, struck the squad car as he passed. Hoffman was not hurt.

MAZPEPPA, Minn. – In the Minnesota Senate debate over state-funded free school meals, Steve Drazkowski was adamantly opposed: “I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry.” Freelance news reporter Aaron Rupor posted Drakowski’s line on Twitter. It went viral – 6.5 million hits in the next three days. Suddenly Drazkowski was a national poster child for uninformed callous money-pinching Republican conservatism. Responded one wag: “Nobody’s hungry in Minnesota? Draz should get out more.” Regardless, the legislation, providing $164 million a year for school breakfasts and lunches, passed the Senate 38-26. Within a week it was signed into law by Democratic Governor Tim Walz. In the meantime, Drazkowski was a lightning rod for criticism. In his hometown, Mazeppa, population 890 in southeast Minnesota, school Superintendent Michael Harvey was incredulous: “I would challenge the senator to look into the eye of a first- or second-grader and explain to them why they feel hungry and why he thinks that’s OK.” Harvey elaborated: “We know that if kids are hungry, they can’t learn. We know if we can’t feed these kids, how are we going to educate them?” Other reaction:
> Senator Heather Gustafson, D-Vadnais Heights, sponsor of the meals legislation, said that in fact nearly 275,000 Minnesota K-12 students are on free or discounted meals under an existing federal program. Roughly one in six are “food insecure,” she said. “They don’t know when their next meal will be available.  I’m a mom. I have four kids. There are a lot of years that we couldn’t afford much. Feeding kids at school is the right thing to do. Being hungry makes learning almost impossible. There is no worksheet or assignment, test or project that will matter to a student who hasn’t had anything to eat.” Gustafson said that parents with two children would save more than $1,800 a year through the proposed state meals plan.

> Senator Zach Duckworth, a Lakeville Republican who supported the free-meals legislation, allowed Drazkowski  some space and put the issue his way: “What we don’t have here is a disagreement that there is a need that should be served. What we do potentially have a disagreement about is how to go about doing that,” he said.

As backlash swelled, Drazkowski’s receptionist shielded him from inquiries from Capitol reporters. He did issue a couple of written statements in attempts to explain his his position on school meals.

Verbatim

Drazkowski in Senate floor debate: “I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry. I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don’t have access to enough food to eat. I should say that hunger is a relative term. I had a cereal bar for breakfast. I guess I’m hungry now.”

Verbatim

Drazkowski, in amfurther explanation of his opposition: “This is nothing more than A socialist effort to make Minnesotans dependent upon government. Minnesota’s socialist party doesn’t want our citizens to aspire to personal responsibility for themselves or their families. They want them all enrolled in government.”

Verbatim

Drazkowski, in further walking back his original comments: “Minnesota already has numerous resources to help kids and families get food on their tables and in their lunch boxes. Volunteers and non-profits are already stepping up at hundreds of food shelves around our state to meet the needs of their own communities. We live in a time in history where we have the safest, cheapest and most abundant food supply in the history of the world. The number of government programs already in place to make certain that kids and adults have food in our state is many. Every kid in school that wants breakfast or lunch gets it. Currently that means that 40% of the population of kids who qualify for Medicaid, and whose families are up to 200% of federal poverty guidelines, gets school breakfast and lunch. Every family that qualifies for the generous taxpayer-funded food-bearing EBT cards gets them. These are just some of the reasons that kids are not going hungry.”

Earlier: Soon the law: Free school meals for kids

Earlier: Free school meals bill now to Walz

WINONA, Minn. – Friends at a party called police that a Burnsville man had driven away drunk with his girlfriend and feuding seriously with her. Police stopped the car on Lafayette Street for an improper turn and missing a license plate. Jace Giovanni Trachsel, 22, seemed intoxicated so officers tested him and found his blood was running 0.14% alcohol. He was arrested for impaired driving. Meanwhile, the woman said she was OK. They took her back to party, where a friend agree to house her for the night.

Softball: Pittsburg State 3. Winona State 0

Softball: Winona State 4, Pittsburg State 1

Softball: UW-LaCrosse 9, Dickinson of Pennshvania 1

Softball: Coe 6, UW-LaCrosse 5

Tennis (women): MSU-Mankato 7, Winona State 0

Basketball (boys): Stewartville Tigers 55, Winona Winhawks 48

Basketball (boys): Whitnall Falcons 53, LaCrosse Cental RiverHawls 52

FARIBAULT, Minn. – Rescuers pulled a Faribault man alive from the Straight River after his worried family reported that one of his dogs had come me alone from a walk dripping wet. The family’s fear: That the man had fallen in. Rescuers began life-saving efforts. The man was airlifted 50 miles in critical condition to a Twin Cities hospital. Initially the man was identified by authorities only as 53 years old from the Teepee Tonka Park neighborhood. He was reported missing about 5 p.m. a couple hours after going out on a walk.

WINONA, Minn. – A security guard at the Menards super-hardware store in the Far East End reported a Wisconsin man walked ouy not  paying for $600 in high-end tools a few days earlier and then came back with a girlfriend the next day and stole $1,000 more. An investigating police officer watched store surveillance video and identified the individuals from previous encounters and also their vehicle. Police referred the case to prosecutors. Named were Steven Junior Huber-Byers 37, of Onalaska, and Carly Frances Polak, 22, of LaCrosse. Among items reported stolen were laser levelers and a tool belt camera.

ST.PAUL, Minn. – Governor Tim Walz signed a universal school meals bill, making Minnesota the fourth U.S. state to provide free breakfast and lunch to all K-12 students regardless of their family’s income. The program will cost $164 million a year. The state money will make up the balance for schools whose students already qualify for a reduced-price federal program. California, Maine and Colorado already have taken similar programs.

Signing ceremony. School kids were invited to the Capitol to witness Governor Walz sign legislation for free school breakfasts and lunches.

Verbatim

Walz: “As a former teacher, I know that providing free breakfast and lunch for our students is one of the best investments we can make to lower costs, support Minnesota’s working families, and care for our young learners and the future of our state. This bill puts us one step closer to making Minnesota the best state for kids to grow up, and I am grateful to all of the legislators and advocates for making it happen.”