ENG A wave of proposed data centers is turning into real engineering and permitting work across Minnesota. Google has scaled back its planned Hermantown data center to a power draw of 300 to 600 megawatts on a 234-acre site. It is the company’s second proposed Minnesota campus, after one in Pine Island near Rochester, and close to a dozen large server farms are now proposed statewide. A second environmental review, redone after residents and an environmental group sued over the first as inadequate, is open for state-agency comment through next week, and the Hermantown City Council must approve it before the project advances. Kimley-Horn prepared the site plan and Mortenson is the project partner. Google says the revised design uses 16 generators, the fewest on any of its projects, and lowers noise at nearby homes.
Source: Minnesota Star Tribune, Aug. 20
ENG A fully rebuilt Highway 280 has reopened ahead of schedule and in time for the State Fair. MnDOT has opened the Saint Paul-to-Roseville connector in both directions after a full closure for reconstruction, a corridor that carries 50,000 to 60,000 vehicles each day between Interstate 94 and Highway 36. The agency chose a full closure so crews could finish faster and more safely. This stage is expected to come in within its $24 million budget, part of an overall $34 million multi-year project. MnDOT will return in two years to repair the bridges over the highway, and the northbound-280-to-Broadway left turn is set to close permanently in 2028 to cut serious crashes.
Source: MPR News, Aug. 20
POLICY A weekend deadline on new tariffs against Canada could ease pressure on steel and aluminum prices. The 50 percent Section 338 duties on $20 billion of Canadian imports, paused for three days on Aug. 18 hours before they were to take effect, are set to expire this weekend as negotiators work in Washington toward a deal. Canada’s lead trade minister and the U.S. Trade Representative met Thursday and were reported to be close to an agreement that would cut tariffs on steel and aluminum but leave softwood lumber and agriculture unsettled. Section 232 metals tariffs already in force have carried into materials budgets and bid pricing since spring. A deal that rolls back the Canada duties would take some cost and schedule risk off projects now in design. A return to 50 percent, or a deadline that passes without terms, would push the other way.
Sources: CP24, Aug. 21; NPR, Aug. 19
FUNDING Federal money to rehabilitate the most dangerous dams is open on a short clock. FEMA opened its fiscal 2026 Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams grants on Aug. 5, with $11.4 million for states and territories and applications due Aug. 31. The grants pay to repair or remove non-federal dams a state has classified as high-hazard-potential where a failure would likely cost lives. They reach only dams in communities that take part in the National Flood Insurance Program. States apply and route the money to dam owners, so the near-term decision sits with Minnesota’s dam-safety program over which structures to advance.
Sources: FEMA, Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams; Grants.gov, FY2026 HHPD opportunity
WORKFORCE Minnesota’s job growth kept beating the nation, even as July dipped. The state added 44,092 jobs over the year, up 1.5 percent against 0.2 percent nationally, with eight of 11 sectors growing, and unemployment fell to 4.3 percent. July itself slipped, down 1,900 nonfarm jobs, and the labor force shrank by about 4,000 as participation eased to 66.9 percent, still among the highest of any state. DEED said it is watching the participation and wage softening. The hiring market for licensed engineers and technicians stays tight.
Source: FOX 9, Aug. 20
WORKFORCE The pool of future engineers is set to shrink, and the Midwest feels it first. The number of 18-year-olds is falling as birthrates decline, and college enrollment is forecast to drop 13 percent by 2041, with the Midwest and Northeast declines already under way, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. Selective schools are drawing more applicants while less-selective ones draw fewer, and skepticism about the value of a degree is rising. A thinner graduate pipeline over the next decade strengthens the case for early recruiting, apprenticeship and technician tracks, and retention.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 21
ACEC Minnesota’s four-session Emerging Leaders program for early-to-mid-career staff runs this October and November. Registration is open.
The (Almost) Daily Brief publishes most weekdays: policy, funding, workforce, and industry news for Minnesota’s engineering firms, in a few minutes of reading.