High wire act // As electric power producers push to build more generating facilities and transmission lines, some consumers and environmentalists fear the path to energy abundance will literally run through their back yards, or over some of the Midwest's most treasured scenery.

Steve Alexander; Staff Writer

Growing demand for electricity in the Twin Cities metro area has sparked plans to build new high-voltage power lines and upgrade many others.

But those high-voltage transmission lines aren't always popular with homeowners and conservationists. Some of the planned power lines _ even those considered vital by electric utilities such as Xcel Energy in Minneapolis _ have met with strong resistance from local residents and started a debate over whom the power lines benefit and hurt.

Xcel says growing demand in the metro area could mean power shortages if some critical projects aren't completed in the next five years.

``The sky isn't falling, but we are starting to outgrow our current [power line] infrastructure,'' said Don Jones, Xcel's transmission reliability director in Minneapolis.

Such warnings have gained credence in the wake of January's rolling blackouts in California. Those limited blackouts, which were in response to power shortages, spread across the northern half of California and affected hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses for as long as two hours.

Despite that, Xcel's power line plans have some harsh critics.

In Chisago County, northeast of the Twin Cities, an upgraded power line that would cross the St. Croix River at Taylors Falls is opposed by local residents on environmental and aesthetic grounds. The opponents are questioning whether the upgrade is needed locally or if it is merely an electricity highway that would enable Xcel to sell bulk power to points east of Minnesota.

In the southeast metro area, the cities of Mendota Heights, South St. Paul and Sunfish Lake are caught up in a public debate over whether their power lines should be upgraded in light of purported health issues and their distance from the business customers who allegedly would benefit most from the new lines.

Xcel counters that all of its proposed Twin Cities projects are needed because of projected growth in local electrical demand, although western Wisconsin also would benefit from the line in Chisago County.

Xcel's proposed southeast metro upgrade would add a second 115,000-volt line that would share poles with the existing line of the same capacity.

Only about 5 miles of the proposed 15-mile upgrade are being challenged by residents, who say they fear negative health effects of magnetic fields from the upgraded power lines, although there appears to be little scientific evidence to support their claims.

Frank Tiffany, a retired physician who is the mayor of Sunfish Lake, said he's unconvinced that magnetic fields from power lines pose health hazards. He said the Minnesota Department of Health recently reviewed medical literature on the subject and found no convincing evidence of health hazards.

Xcel agrees. Independent scientific studies done over the past 20 years ``have failed to conclude there are harmful effects'' from power line magnetic fields, said Steve LaCasse, an Xcel consulting engineer in Minneapolis. ``That's our position.''

Joe Turenne, a South St. Paul resident, opposes the southeast power line upgrade for health reasons because the existing line passes close to his home. Turenne wants the line buried. He says _ and Xcel's LaCasse agrees _ that burying the line would minimize the reach of its magnetic field.

``If Xcel were interested in peoples' health, it would bury the power line,'' Turenne said.

Who pays?

But Xcel says it won't bury a power line unless city governments or local rate payers agree to foot the bill for the difference in cost. Patrick Cline, an Xcel community relations manager in Edina, said it costs Xcel five to 10 times as much to bury a power line than it would to put it on poles.

But Roger Conant, a Sunfish Lake resident, argues that new medical evidence shows that the magnetic fields surrounding the southeast metro power line are unhealthy, and that they would get worse in the future if the line were upgraded.

Conant and Xcel agree that, for technical reasons, upgrading the line temporarily would lower the magnetic field. But that won't last. As Xcel fills the capacity of the two lines with more power, the magnetic fields will grow to the intensity of the original single power line.

As a result, Conant not only wants to block the power line upgrade but insists on having the existing power line removed because it is too close to some homes. After failing to convince the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to order the line removed on safety grounds, Conant has taken his case to the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

``There are cheap and available alternatives that would allow Xcel to reroute the lines away from homes. The consultant hired by the three affected cities identified several alternatives that don't go near homes, and they are not that much more expensive,'' Conant said.

Tiffany is concerned about the location of the power line for a different reason: He believes the power line upgrade would inconvenience the wrong people _ citizens of Sunfish Lake _ rather than the people who will need additional electric power in the future, who he believes are those along Interstate Hwy. 494 near the Mall of America.

``This is not the part of the line that needs more power. It is the west part of the line, in Bloomington and Eagan. And Xcel can route more power into that area from other directions,'' Tiffany said.

Xcel maintains that it is impossible to determine where the electricity passing through the upgraded southeast metro line will go because the electric grid is interconnected.

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A conflict of interest

Why Tiffany and the other southeast mayors know so much about Xcel's alternatives represents one of the stranger twists in the story between Xcel and the power line opponents.

The cities wanted more information about the proposed power line upgrade project before approving it, but told Xcel they couldn't afford to hire a consultant to study the project. As a result, Xcel agreed to pay the $140,000 cost of hiring a consultant, even though Tiffany agreed the move appeared to be a conflict of interest.

What's more, the consulting firm the cities hired, Commonwealth Associates of Jackson, Mich., was the same firm Xcel had hired to design the proposed power line upgrade. As a result, Commonwealth stands to earn $150,000 in additional fees from Xcel if the power line project goes through, Xcel confirmed.

Tiffany said a committee of the mayors of the three cities knew about that potential conflict of interest, too, but chose Commonwealth anyway because it appeared to be the most qualified consulting firm.

The hiring of the Xcel-employed consulting firm angered power line opponents. Turenne charged that the three mayors ``are in no way looking out for our interests'' because they hired Commonwealth, a firm ``which is not impartial.''

But the questionable consulting relationship might not benefit Xcel in the end. Even though Commonwealth's study recommended the upgrade Xcel has proposed, Tiffany said the city councils in Mendota Heights, South St. Paul and Sunfish Lake might take a different approach.

Rather than grant Xcel the permits needed for the upgrade, they might deny them on the grounds that the Commonwealth study identified other Twin Cities power lines that Xcel could upgrade instead _ lines that are closer to the I-494 strip.

``I feel we have an arguable case for finding alternative ways to bring power into the growth areas in Bloomington and Eagan,'' Tiffany said.

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Aesthetic concerns

In Chisago County, opponents of the planned 15-mile stretch of an upgraded power line (another 25 miles would be in Wisconsin) won a political victory in 1998 when the state Commerce Department advised regulators not to allow Xcel to upgrade the power line from 69,000 to 230,000 volts because the increased capacity wasn't needed by local residents.

Xcel then withdrew the proposal from state regulators, reduced the proposed capacity of the upgraded line to 161,000 volts (below the level state regulators must approve) and appealed to city and county governments to approve it instead. So far, the cities of Taylors Falls and St. Croix Falls, Wis., have agreed to the upgrade project, but Chisago County and some of the other cities in it have not.

Xcel asserts that the power line upgrade would benefit both the growing northeast metro area and customers in rural Wisconsin. Opponents say their area doesn't need such a large power line, and that Xcel really is building the high-voltage line to sell bulk power to Wisconsin and other states to the east.

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Who benefits?

Peter Nelson, mayor of Lindstrom, Minn., one of the cities affected by the proposed power line upgrade, said Xcel ``wants to build a power line of such a size that its sole purpose is not to serve any of us but instead to sell power all the way to eastern Wisconsin and beyond.''

Added Tom Martin, a Chisago County resident who is chairman of a power line opposition group, Concerned River Valley Citizens: ``This is a gimmick for Xcel to get a high-power transfer line, because with electric utility deregulation they want to be wholesale power shippers. They can make billions of dollars off this line by shipping power from west to east.''

Xcel denies the charge.

``That perception is out there, and has been from the beginning, and it's just simply not true,'' said Jim Alders, a manager of regulatory administration for Xcel. ``We have a number of serious electrical system reliability issues in northwestern Wisconsin and east central Minnesota that we're trying to deal with. The proposed Chisago line is not an effort expand our ability to trade power.

``We need the line, and we need it here. If we do nothing we'll place a lot of people at risk'' of electrical shortages, he said.

The problem, Alders said, is that it's not feasible for Xcel to distinguish between the electricity needs of its Minnesota and Wisconsin residents (the project is a joint venture with the Wisconsin utility Dairyland Power) when building a power line.

``The electrical world doesn't know that a border is there,'' he said.

Nelson, Lindstrom's mayor, said the Chisago power line upgrade also is opposed because of the power line's magnetic field and because the line would mar the natural beauty of the county _ which contains a game refuge and two state parks _ and the St. Croix River, designated a National Wild and Scenic Riverway.

Xcel and the local governments are negotiating, but based on local regulatory timetables it seems the standoff could continue into next year _ six years after Xcel originally proposed the 230,000-volt power line upgrade.

Said Tiffany: ``Xcel will face the `not in my back yard' situation wherever they want to install or upgrade power lines.''

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Steve Alexander can be contacted at alex@startribune.com

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Proposed power line upgrades

To deal with increasing demands for electricity, Xcel Energy is proposing many power line upgrades and some new power lines throughout the metro area. Two power line upgrade projects, in the southeast metro area and Chisago County, are opposed by some local residents who cite health or environmental concerns or believe the upgrades are unnecessary.