A Minnesota plumbing-code interpretation runs into how civil engineers design storm sewers. The state Plumbing Board has read the code, which bars anything that obstructs or retards flow in a drainage system, to mean that storm sewers cannot be surcharged, meaning they cannot flow under pressure above the pipe crown. The board’s ad hoc committee on storm drainage surcharge is working toward a recommendation on how to provide clarity, and the board meets Tuesday, July 21. The tension for firms is that controlled surcharge is standard storm-drainage practice. Civil designers routinely size systems so a storm sewer surcharges toward the hydraulic grade line in larger storms, holding that grade line below inlets and building elevations. A reading that forbids any surcharge of exterior storm systems would sit at odds with that practice and with the way MnDOT and municipal drainage networks are designed, and it raises a broader question of where the plumbing code stops and civil site design begins. Firms with municipal, site, and transportation drainage work should track the July 21 discussion and the committee’s eventual recommendation.
Source: Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, Plumbing Board; DLI storm drainage surcharge interpretation
ENG A 150-megawatt battery cleared a key Minnesota permit, adding to the state’s storage pipeline. The Public Utilities Commission granted a site permit for Spearmint Energy’s Midwater Energy Storage Project, a 150 MW, 600 MWh standalone battery in Freeborn County next to the Glenworth Substation off Highway 65. The system would provide roughly four hours of discharge and connect directly to the high-voltage grid. Construction has not started, and the project still needs interconnection agreements and financing. Standalone storage is a growing project type in Minnesota, and each site carries civil, electrical, environmental, and interconnection engineering, from siting and grading to substation and protection work. The permit is a marker of where the state’s grid-scale storage queue is heading.
Source: Interesting Engineering, July 18
ENG MnDOT tightened its design playbook, and the changes touch how firms draw and pay for the work. The department’s July Design Scene update revised guidance across multiple chapters. Standard plans are now incorporated by reference, like standard plates, with digital-delivery instructions updated in Chapter 19. New pay items appear for an Environmental Product Declaration and a sediment strip, spec 2106 language for contaminated soils was reworked, low-tension guardrail pay items were retired, and designers are now advised to route concrete-paving plans to the concrete office before plan turn-in. Separately, MnDOT released updated M-Series sign designs to align with the 11th Edition of the Minnesota MUTCD, covering route signs, detour signs, and auxiliary plaques, part of a phased rewrite of the Standard Signs and Markings Manual. None of it is glamorous, but it is exactly the detail that governs plan production, bid items, and rework on trunk-highway projects.
Source: MnDOT Standard Signs and Markings Manual and Design Scene, July 2026
POLICY Minnesota moved its DBE certification onto a new system, and firms that team with disadvantaged business enterprises should take note. The Minnesota Unified Certification Program’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise certification portal is now live in B2Gnow, the same platform already used by the City of St. Paul, the City of Minneapolis, and Hennepin County. Currently certified DBEs can manage their certification online, submit the annual Declaration of Eligibility, track applications, and update NAICS codes, and interstate-certified firms can apply for Minnesota certification. Prospective Minnesota firms will be able to apply online in a later phase. DBE participation is a condition on federally funded transportation work, so the certification status of subconsultants and the goals attached to a project run straight through prime firms’ teaming and bidding.
WORKFORCE A new federal rule reworks how international students and workers keep their status, and it reaches the talent pipeline. DHS finalized a rule on July 17, effective September 15, that ends “duration of status” for F-1 students, J-1 exchange visitors, and I media representatives and replaces it with fixed admission periods, capped at four years for students. Extensions now run through USCIS applications rather than school officials, which adds fees, processing time, and denial risk. For firms that hire international STEM graduates, the exposure is the Optional Practical Training pipeline that feeds early-career engineering hires and the H-1B track behind it. The rule gives post-completion OPT a limited six-month grace on filing and an auto-extension of up to 240 days in hardship cases, but the direction adds friction to recruiting and keeping international talent. Firms that hire on OPT should map their international staff’s status dates now and build the new USCIS timelines into workforce planning.
Source: Federal Register, July 17
WORKFORCE Minnesota’s worker shortage looks less like a cycle and more like the new baseline. Star Tribune columnist Evan Ramstad, drawing on Census data and demographers, lays out why the state’s labor crunch is becoming permanent. Minnesota’s white-alone population peaked in 2015 and has fallen by about 215,000 since, and overall growth keeps slowing as the population ages and fertility holds well below the replacement rate, around 1.6 births per woman nationally against the 2.1 needed to keep a population steady. University of Minnesota demographer Steven Ruggles forecasts an unprecedented shortfall of new workers in the 2030s and 2040s and sustained upward pressure on wages, and he doubts AI will fully offset it. For engineering firms, the read is that the talent squeeze is structural rather than a passing tight market. Recruiting stays hard and wage pressure persists, so the firms that pull ahead will lean on productivity, retention, and building their own pipeline instead of waiting for the labor pool to refill.
Source: Star Tribune (Ramstad), July 16
BIZ The tariff wall is being rebuilt in real time, and materials costs keep climbing. After the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s emergency-powers tariffs in February, the President imposed a temporary 10 percent surcharge on most imports under Section 122 of the Trade Act. That surcharge hits its 150-day limit and expires July 24, but relief looks unlikely. The administration is replacing it with Section 301 and Section 232 measures, including fresh tariffs on major trading partners, and the separate Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper stay in place. Underneath the policy churn, construction input prices are up 8.4 percent over the past year, the largest jump since the pandemic, led by aluminum mill shapes up about 49 percent, copper up 27 percent, and fabricated structural steel up 16 percent. Contractors are squeezed, with input costs climbing far faster than the roughly 3.5 percent they have added to bids. For firms advising owners, this is the week to check escalation clauses, use allowances for volatile items like copper and structural steel, and keep bid-validity windows short.
Sources: White House, February 20; Council on Foreign Relations, July 17; AGC, June 11
Surcharge (storm drainage). The condition in which a storm sewer flows under pressure rather than as an open channel, backing water up above the pipe crown toward the hydraulic grade line during larger storms. Civil designers routinely allow controlled surcharge, sizing systems so the hydraulic grade line stays below inlets and building elevations. That accepted practice is what a plumbing-code reading barring any surcharge of storm sewers would run into, which is why the Plumbing Board’s interpretation carries weight for how storm drainage gets designed and who regulates it.
Build your bench: ACEC Minnesota’s Leadership Development Series for mid-career professionals runs September 2026 through April 2027 in a 24-person cohort, and the four-session Emerging Leaders program for early-career staff runs this October and November.
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