Three documents a resident and reporter in southeastern Wyoming offered to state permitting authorities in opposition of a large Chugwater-area wind and solar project are fraudulent, the Wyoming Industrial Siting Division says.
The woman who submitted the documents, Marie Hamilton, countered in a Monday interview with Cowboy State Daily, saying the division has ignored her attempts to show the documents’ origin.
She also claimed the agency violated her child’s privacy by airing some of their contents during the authenticity debate.
The controversy unfolded during a Monday hearing of the Industrial Siting Council in Chugwater over whether the council should approve the build permit for the Chugwater Energy Project.
The proposed build by NextEra Energy Resources is a 300-megawatt wind energy, 150 megawatt solar and 150 megawatt battery storage system (BESS) facility slated for a Platte County parcel east of Chugwater and Interstate 25.
The council approved the permit after hours of testimony, and amid locals’ concerns over the potential health risks of living near turbines, the potential to kill eagles, incursions on wildlife corridors by the solar project, and the chance that the BESS could rupture and pollute the groundwater, or suffer a thermal runaway.
The council added conditions for groundwater quality monitoring, and a greater distance between wind towers and a concerned local's home.
‘Fraudulently Submitted To The Council’
But first, the council heard the testimony of Wyoming Attorney General’s Office paralegal Carrie Mays, under questioning by Supervising Attorney General Greg Weisz of the AG’s Water and Natural Resources Division.
Mays and Weisz together indicated that Hamilton, who runs a news outlet based out of Chugwater called the Wyoming Sentinel, offered three documents to the council for a contested November hearing on the Chugwater project: a 10-page letter bearing a Colorado doctor’s digital signature, and two more documents bearing official insignia from Laramie County School District No. 1.
“The evidence shows, unequivocally, those documents were not prepared by the purported authors,” concluded Weisz after questioning Mays, who recounted her efforts to confirm the documents’ authenticity.
“Frankly, it’s the position of the division that, as Dr. (Aaron) Meng himself and as the school district employees specifically stated, those documents were fraudulently submitted to the council and should in fact be disregarded in their entirety,” he said.
The Doctor
Weisz and Mays together described the first document as a 10-page letter with UC Health letterhead and the signature of Dr. Aaron Meng, dated Oct. 31.
Mays told Weisz she contacted Meng to try to authenticate the letter.
“He stated he could not have written that letter,” since he hadn’t worked for UC Health for two years, related Mays.
He’d gone on to work for Kaiser Permanente in Colorado, she added.
Mays described reaching out to the Kaiser Permanente legal group as well.
She said she sent the legal group a redacted copy of the letter, and only the last page showing the signature block and the letterhead. She described having redacted the name of Hamilton’s child, referenced in the letter.
In response, said Mays, Meng sent a Dec. 17 letter to the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office attesting “that I did not provide (the 10-page) letter to anyone,” Weisz related, reading aloud.
Meng could not be reached by publication time.
The School District
Next, Mays said she sought confirmation regarding “exhibits K and L,” which were two documents Hamilton reportedly provided, bearing an image purporting to be Laramie County School District 1’s letterhead and digital signatures purporting to belong to the educator Audrey Adams.
Mays said she emailed with school district attorney Amy Pauli, and Pauli — like Meng — disavowed the documents.
Mays described redacting sensitive information from these documents as well.
“No one from McCormick Junior High School special education team, or the district special services division, authored or knowingly contributed to the fraudulently submitted reports,” related Weisz from Pauli’s response.
Weisz also read aloud from what he said was an affidavit by Adams.
“I did not write, draft, review, authorize or approve either document,” Adams wrote, according to Weisz. “I am gravely concerned these documents were fraudulently submitted in my name, without my knowledge or authorization.”
Pauli did not immediately respond to a late-day request for comment on the district’s or Adams’ behalf.
Correcting The Record
Weisz then asked the council to correct the contents of a Dec. 23 order signed by hearing examiner John Knepper, in which Knepper wrote that the council didn’t rely on the documents and that she testified during executive session, rather, to her personal knowledge.
Weisz emphasized that he wasn’t trying to disrespect Knepper, and believes Knepper’s physical position during the executive session where Hamilton testified could have hampered his understanding of the events.
But that interpretation was not correct, said Weisz.
He asked the council to correct that order to reflect that the council did rely on the allegedly fraudulent documents.
“What I remember specifically was a discussion by Ms. Hamilton that exhibit J — the graphs that were part of Dr. Meng’s supposed letter — she discussed those in quite vibrant detail,” Weisz said.
The council voted in favor of that correction.
That’s ‘Immaterial’
Hamilton in a Monday interview said she was in a difficult position of having “an email contradicting the testimony that the division presented today,” but being unable to send the email to Cowboy State Daily out of concern it would undermine a due process complaint she said she submitted to the state over the Monday controversy.
She said she’s offered that email to the division multiple times, and its staff has declined to review it.
Hamilton said the Industrial Siting Division violated federal law by airing her child’s school and the name of an educator on his special education team in the public meeting.
She pointed to a federal definition of personally identifiable information under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
The division said it was unable to respond to her claims late Monday, as its staffers remained in Chugwater throughout the day.
“It doesn’t matter what they presented today, because it was a violation starting in November when they (shared) identifying information,” said Hamilton.
She also countered Weisz correction motion, saying those documents were never officially submitted, the division and energy company objected to admitting them, the council didn’t rely on them, “and they’re immaterial.”
“So I would say my concerns are not about the merits of the permit itself, but rather about the process, the accuracy and protection of confidential information,” she said. “Particularly information relating to my minor child.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
