Congress is moving the bill behind most of your clients’ water work. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee each advanced a 2026 Water Resources Development Act on July 14, both by unanimous votes. The Senate package reauthorizes the drinking water State Revolving Fund at $16.5 billion and the clean water SRF at $14 billion for 2027 through 2030, and reauthorizes WIFIA at $260 million. The House bill carries a five-year reauthorization of the High Hazard Potential Dam Rehabilitation program, and both versions extend IIJA money aimed at PFAS, lead service lines, and small and rural systems. Floor votes could come before the August recess, with a conference committee likely reconciling the two by early September. For Minnesota firms, this is the authorization behind the municipal water and wastewater pipeline and the dam-safety work that follows it, and it puts real numbers under the WIFIA financing noted here yesterday.
Source: ENR, July 15; Senate EPW
ENG The Tamarack nickel mine cleared a Minnesota permitting first. The DNR released scoping documents for public comment on Talon Metals’ proposed underground nickel-copper-cobalt mine in Aitkin County, the first underground mine the agency has advanced to this stage of environmental review. The surface footprint runs about 64 acres for ore handling, rail loadout, wastewater treatment, and ventilation, and no tailings would be stored in Minnesota. Comments run through September 14, with public meetings August 5 in McGregor and August 12 in Blaine. Scoping does not decide the project, but it opens a multi-year environmental, geotechnical, and water-engineering effort and sets precedent for how the state reviews underground mining.
Source: WDIO, July 15
BIZ Minnesota is trying to build a sustainable aviation fuel industry from the ground up. A Greater MSP-led coalition that includes Delta, Ecolab, and Bank of America is positioning the state as a SAF hub. Flint Hills’ Pine Bend refinery in Rosemount is commissioning the largest SAF blending facility outside California this month, and DG Fuels has a $5 billion plant targeted for Moorhead by 2030 at 193 million gallons a year. A state tax credit of $1.50 a gallon runs through 2035, with a bonus up to $2 for deeper carbon cuts, and it requires blending or production in state. The near-term demand is industrial: process facilities, feedstock logistics, and the ag and rail infrastructure to feed them. The related Minnesota Energy Innovation Summit runs October 19 at the McNamara Alumni Center.
Source: MinnPost, July 1
WORKFORCE Minnesota added jobs again, and the labor force kept shrinking. The state gained 13,200 jobs in June, a third straight monthly gain, while national payrolls were flat. Unemployment held at 4.4 percent. The figure that matters for firm staffing is labor force participation, which slipped to 67 percent, a seventh consecutive monthly decline. Construction lost 1,100 jobs over the month but is up 8,474, or 5.5 percent, over the year, and professional and business services added 3,500. Demand for design and construction talent is holding up. The shrinking labor pool, not the order book, is the constraint on hiring.
Source: DEED, July 16
BIZ The Pentagon paused CMMC, and your compliance duties did not pause with it. The Defense Department suspended CMMC Phase 2 and opened a 60-day review of the program. For any firm with defense or federal work, the NIST 800-171 self-assessment and the score posted in the Supplier Performance Risk System now serve as the interim standard, and DFARS 252.204-7012 obligations and the Phase 1 self-assessment still apply today. A false or inflated SPRS score still carries False Claims Act exposure. If a contract already required a third-party C3PAO or DIBCAC assessment, confirm in writing whether that clause is actually being removed before you stand anything down.
Source: Washington Technology, July 2026; ACEC advisory
POLICY Two MnDOT statewide plans are open for input right now. The draft Greater Minnesota Transit Plan is out for public comment through Monday, July 20, and the Statewide Bicycle+ System Plan update has a Phase 2 survey open through the summer, both headed for final plans this fall. These documents set MnDOT’s transit and active-transportation priorities and feed its design manuals, so they shape which projects get scoped and how bikeways get designed on trunk highways. Firms and their public-agency clients have a short window to shape the framework before it locks.
Source: MnDOT Office of Transit and Active Transportation, July 2026
ENG Three new University of Minnesota studies land squarely in firm practice. CTS published work on a portable, radar-based warning system that slows drivers approaching work-zone flaggers, field-tested and built light enough to actually get deployed. A Duluth-led study traced joint separation in precast concrete culverts, a problem in nearly 20 percent of the state’s round concrete culverts, to freeze-thaw and water-table stresses, and recommends tying all joints, compacting backfill, and using frost-resistant soil. And the Biking for Science project measured how cargo bikes and e-bikes move through five cities to update MnDOT’s bikeway design standards. Work-zone safety, culvert asset management, and bikeway design feed straight into project delivery.
State Revolving Fund. A state-run loan fund, capitalized by federal grants and a state match, that lends to cities and utilities for water and wastewater projects; repayments cycle back out as new loans. The Clean Water and Drinking Water SRFs are the workhorse financing behind most municipal water infrastructure, which is why their WRDA reauthorization sets the size of that pipeline.
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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