In 2004, Leslie Glustrom was working in a biochemistry laboratory at the University of Colorado at Boulder when she became increasingly concerned about global warming.
“I had thought this was something that was going to affect us mid-century,” she said. “But research was showing that the impacts were already here.”
As a mother of two — both young adults — Glustrom, 56, decided advocacy was more important than lab work.
She helped found a nonprofit group in Boulder called Clean Energy Action.
A major personal concern was Xcel Energy’s plan to build the $1.4 billion Comanche 3 coal-fired power plant in Pueblo.
Coal-fired power plants are one of the principal sources of man-made carbon dioxide emissions — a gas linked to climate change, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Another coal-fired power plant was not something Colorado needed,” Glustrom said.
She began attending state Public Utilities Commission meetings and soon became the only citizen intervener in Xcel rate cases.
“Leslie is passionate and knowledgeable,” said John Nielsen, energy program director for the environmental policy group Western Resource Advocates. “She adds to the debate at the commission.”
In her filings, Glustrom has consistently challenged adding Comanche 3 into rates and the company’s estimates of the future cost of coal — which she argues will be much higher.
At the same time, she has delved into the minutiae of rate setting.
Environmental agendas that don’t account for costs are misguided, Glustrom said.
“The burden doesn’t fall on middle-class environmentalists,” she said. “It falls on low-income people.”
Glustrom’s appearances at the commission can be taxing.
“I try not to be rude, but I am very aggressive,” she concedes.
It often leads to Xcel attorneys having to jump up to prune back Glustrom’s expanding bale of questions.
At one hearing Ron Binz, the commission chairman, interrupted Glustrom to say: “You’re testifying, not asking questions. There will be time to testify later.”
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
