The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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February 4, 2009

Bird lover cries fowl over power line

Henderson resident starts petition for project to be built on alternate route

By Brian Ojanpa

HENDERSON — A power line project has produced a not-in-my-backyard cry with an addendum:

Not-in-my-backyard-where-eagles-soar.

Never mind that transmission lines bisecting the Minnesota River Valley would be “aesthetically disgusting,” said Dolores Hagen of Henderson.

What really has her crying foul is that the lines would hamper fowl. That’s because a Minnesota River Flyway spot near Henderson and Le Sueur is a nesting area for eagles and the migration route for dozens of bird species.

“You can watch eagles dance in the sky and watch herons go back and forth in their nests,” she said of a roadside pull-off area along Bucks Lake near Le Sueur.

The proposed CapX 2020 transmission line would stretch from Brookings, S.D., to Hampton in southeastern Minnesota, and would cut right through the lake.

This is the current preferred route for the line. Hagen has started a petition calling for the project’s alternate route to be used. That route would have the lines crossing the river at Belle Plaine.

The power line project is a joint initiative of 11 transmission-owning utilities in Minnesota and the surrounding region. Its purpose is to expand the electric transmission grid to meet growing power demands in the region that the current grid won’t be able to handle.

“We need power. I’m not against power. But the preferred route would be very disruptive to what we call the Le Sueur Recovery Zone,” said Hagen, who operates a bird information center in Henderson, where visitors are apprised of prime bird-watching spots in the area.

Hagen said the Henderson area of the Minnesota River Valley is prime bird-viewing territory, and bird-watching groups can provide economic stimulus to an area badly in need of it.

“The Minnesota River Valley is a treasure, and people have abused it horribly for so many years,” she said.

But its environmental habitat has been rebounding of late, and Hagen suggests that installation of the lines near Henderson would be a decided step backward in its recovery.

Ray Kirsch of the Minnesota Department of Commerce is the public adviser for the project. He said no matter where the lines eventually are routed, some people are likely to be unhappy.

“It’s a challenge. ‘Balance everything’ is what they’re charged with doing,” he says of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission’s task of deciding upon a route.

The routes being considered were submitted by the project’s applicant agencies, Great River Energy and Xcel Energy.

Bob Cupit of the Utilities Commission’s permitting unit said those agencies eventually will have to show why they’ve deemed those routes preferable.

Cupit said the eventual route chosen by the commission will be one that minimizes disruption and impact on the environment and the public.

“The goal is to make it fit the landscape and human side of things as much as possible,” he said.

A series of public meetings all along the South Dakota/Minnesota routing areas will be held this spring, and people can suggest other route alternatives at those gatherings.

A decision on a route is expected to be made in December with line construction starting in 2011.

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