Attorneys for conservation groups have asked Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to revoke wetlands and waterway permits for the embattled Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line.
The Environmental Law & Policy Center — representing the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, Driftless Area Land Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Refuge Association — last month sent a letter to the DNR asking it to halt construction of the 101-mile, 345-kV line until the agency and the Wisconsin Public Service Commission conduct a new environmental review.
“Wisconsin DNR has the obligation and duty under Wisconsin law to stop this orchestrated trainwreck, pause the construction spree, and provide for the proper environmental process to take its course without the specter of a rushed construction process and a forced decision leading to wasteful costs and unnecessary environmental harms and property damages,” lead attorney Howard Learner wrote.
The letter is the latest step in the conservation groups’ ongoing battle against Cardinal-Hickory Creek’s construction.
U.S. District Judge William Conley last month issued a final ruling forbidding the line from running through a protected wildlife refuge in southwestern Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. He agreed with the groups and overturned the line’s environmental impact statement (EIS), prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service. The EIS didn’t adequately consider line alternatives and failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, the judge ruled. (See Federal Judge: Tx Line Can’t Cross Wildlife Refuge.)
The line’s co-owners — American Transmission Co., ITC Midwest and Dairyland Power Cooperative — have asked a federal appeals court to suspend the decision until an appeals panel decides the case. They argue the project will be able to cut through the refuge.
Learner told the DNR that ATC, ITC and Dairyland are “aggressively continuing to build two costly and environmentally destructive high-voltage transmission line segments in Wisconsin and in Iowa with no legally permissible connection through the protected Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.” He said the companies are deliberately “pushing forward with construction despite their lack of a lawful path to completion so they can create maximum leverage … while passing on costs and risks to the captive utility ratepayers.”
Learner said a new, “lawful” environmental review is in order, especially because the DNR’s 2019 wetlands and waterway permits rely on the now-invalid EIS. The DNR must “divorce itself from the transmission companies’ bulldozing and bullying,” Learner added.
The nearly $500 million line is the last of MISO’s $6.7 billion, 17-project Multi-Value Project portfolio approved in 2011. MISO has since moved on to another long-range planning effort. (See MISO Updates Stakeholders on $10B Long-range Tx Package.)
Some MISO stakeholders have asked the RTO to omit the project from system modeling it performs for transmission planning, saying its completion is no longer a foregone conclusion.
ATC, ITC and Dairyland have so far spent $161 million on the project. Construction began last fall, and the line currently has a December 2023 in-service date.
ATC spokesperson Alissa Braatz said the developers disagree with both Conley’s ruling barring passage through the wildlife refuge and the argument that the original EIS requires changes. Although “legal proceedings continue, [the utilities] have the regulatory authorization to move forward with construction activities, and project construction will continue in areas outside of the refuge,” she said.
“Renewable generation developers and distribution utilities are depending on the Cardinal-Hickory Creek project to facilitate our region’s transition from fossil fuels,” Braatz said in an email to RTO Insider. “The critical role of this project in meeting our region’s energy needs compels us to ensure it is built for the benefit of electricity consumers by the scheduled in-service date.”
