This looks like a utility press release, nothing whatsoever from anyone other than project developers and promoters.

Albert Lea Economic Development Agency Executive Director Dan Dorman said the proposal would benefit Freeborn County.

And Mr. Dorman, exactly how would a pass through benefit Freeborn County?

There’s an “opportunity for comment” and it’s easy, so comment away!  It starts on Green Power Express and digresses into CapX 2020:

Idea for energy lines has route in southern Minn.

Proposal for transmission lines could be one of largest in U.S. ever

By Tim Engstrom | Albert Lea Tribune

Published Saturday, April 25, 2009

(cut out GPE — just the CapX part below)
CapX2020

There is another plan for additional transmission lines in Minnesota. Only these are 345-kilovolt lines.

Xcel Energy and 10 other Minnesota utilities have joined to propose CapX2020. In the first phase there is not a route proposed for Freeborn County.

CapX2020 Co-Executive Director Terry Grove of Great River Energy said the utilities came together because it had been too long since the last major revision to transmission lines statewide.

“The CapX2020 organization was formed in 2005 to develop the new transmission lines,” reads a news release. “The planned 700 miles of electric lines is the largest development of new transmission in Minnesota in nearly 30 years, a period in which electricity demand has dramatically increased.”

There isn’t one proposed for Freeborn County, Grove said, the proposed corridors are driven by load-service needs. The critical sites were Red River Valley, St. Cloud, Rochester and Alexandria.

On April 16, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission granted a certificate of need to CapX2020. The application was filed in August 2007.

Approved were:

A 240-mile, 345-kilovolt line between Brookings County, S.D., and Hampton, plus a 345-kilovolt line between Marshall and Granite Falls.

A 250-mile, 345-kilovolt line between Fargo, N.D., and Alexandria, St. Cloud and Monticello.

A 150-mile, 345-kilovolt line between Hampton, Rochester and La Crosse, Wis.

Now CapX2020 is seeking the route permits.

Grove said CapX2020 recently issued a new round of studies that could include a 345-kV transmission route through Freeborn County. A line could be part of a later phase of CapX2020.

Grove said Midwest ISO ultimately determines how transmission will be managed in the region. Calling the proposals “building blocks,” he said the CapX2020 plan for Minnesota could integrate with the Green Power Express plan for the seven-state region.

Albert Lea Economic Development Agency Executive Director Dan Dorman said the proposal would benefit Freeborn County.

“More transmission in our area is going to mean more wind turbine development, which I think is a good thing,” he said.