The (Almost) Daily Brief

Minnesota Supreme Court Weighs Refunds for Duluth Stormwater Fees

By Megan Dayton · 10/14/2026

WORKFORCE  Automatic extensions of expiring work permits end today. A Homeland Security final rule effective Oct. 14 finalizes an interim rule issued Oct. 30, 2025 that stopped the practice of automatically extending employment authorization documents while a renewal application sits pending. For renewal applications filed on or after Oct. 30, 2025, a pending Form I-765 and its receipt notice no longer extend the validity of the card. Work authorization now ends on the date printed on the document unless a new card has been issued. The extension the rule removes ran to 540 days. Check the expiration dates on the cards in your files.

Source: Federal Register, Oct. 14 (91 FR 65306)

POLICY  Minneapolis has a data center zoning code in front of it for the first time. The city planning commission approved the proposal Tuesday night. The moratorium on large-scale data centers that the council adopted in May expires Nov. 21. Data centers are currently classified as communication exchanges, allowed by conditional use permit in 10 of the city’s 15 primary zoning districts with no standards written for them. The proposal makes them their own use and allows them by conditional use permit in two downtown districts, which the staff report puts at under 4 percent of the city’s land area. New centers would be allowed only in existing buildings, with mechanical equipment kept off the first and second floors, the space set 20 feet from an exterior wall and 100 feet from a neighboring residence. A commission amendment caps the white space housing servers at 50,000 square feet, down from the 175,000 square feet first proposed, and a second amendment moves the rules to overlay zoning, which adds a layer of city review. Code development manager Jason Wittenberg said the approach opens vacant downtown buildings, 30 percent of downtown space, or 8 million square feet. Forty people spoke in public comment and most said the rules are too loose. The Business, Housing and Zoning Committee takes it up Nov. 6 and the full council Nov. 12.

Source: KARE 11, Oct. 13

PROJECTS  C.S. McCrossan is the apparent best value on the second I-494 design-build package. MnDOT has posted results from the Oct. 13 best-value letting for I-494 between the airport and Highway 169, state project 2785-462. McCrossan scored 96.72 on its technical proposal and bid $288,646,385, for an adjusted score of 2,984,351. Ames Construction scored 94.59 and bid $313,499,000, for 3,314,293. The adjusted score divides price by technical score, and the lower figure leads. The page is headed apparent bid results and the contract is not executed. The package covers mainline pavement and drainage reconstruction, an E-ZPass lane extension, and bridge work including the CPKC Railroad bridge over I-494 and Highway 77 over I-494. MnDOT’s project page says design and construction post-letting oversight will use consultant contracts. Major construction is set to start in spring 2027. Neither team’s designer has been publicly identified.

Sources: MnDOT design-build apparent bid results; MnDOT, I-494 Airport to Highway 169

BIZ  Consumer inflation reached 3.7 percent in September. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that the consumer price index rose 3.7 percent from a year ago, up from 3.4 percent in August, and 0.6 percent on the month, the largest monthly gain in five months. Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 2.6 percent on the year and 0.3 percent on the month. Gasoline rose 9.1 percent on the month and 34.2 percent on the year, with the national average at $4.33 a gallon. Electricity rose 4.4 percent on the year. Computers rose 9.7 percent on the year. Goldman Sachs estimated this week that the artificial intelligence buildout has added half a percentage point to the annual rate on the measure the Federal Reserve watches. The Federal Reserve meets Oct. 27 and 28, and most investors expect it to hold after September’s increase and weigh another in December. Chairman Kevin Warsh said last month that inflation is not returning to the 2 percent target quickly enough.

Source: Associated Press, Oct. 14

POLICY  A federal judge has paused a $700 million wastewater operations contract over how it was scored. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District awarded a ten-year operations and maintenance contract to Jacobs Solutions on Sept. 28. Veolia Milwaukee, which has run the system since 2008, sued the district in federal court in Milwaukee and asked for a restraining order, arguing that the two-year procurement was structured to reach a decision the district had already made. Judge Brett Ludwig paused execution of the contract this month until the suit is resolved. The district says its request for proposals weighted pricing at 60 percent, overall approach at 25 percent, staffing, training, and corporate culture at 10 percent, and regional partnership at 5 percent, and that its committee scored Jacobs at 96.8 points against Veolia’s 84.9. Jacobs bid $54 million less. On one sewer-cleaning line item Jacobs proposed $5.54 per linear foot against Veolia’s $54, and the district says it checked those rates against recent bids for similar work and found them reasonable. Wisconsin law gives an unsuccessful bidder no damages remedy, so stopping the award before signature is the only relief on the table. The district denies that it steered the procurement.

Informational, not legal advice.

Source: Engineering News-Record, Oct. 13

PROJECTS  Two public meetings next week open a Benton County battery project to comment. Benton Granite City Energy Storage has filed a complete site permit application for the Granite City Battery Energy Storage System, a standalone project rated at 300 megawatts and 1,200 megawatt-hours on 87 acres in the Saint Cloud-Minden Township orderly annexation area. The Public Utilities Commission is handling it under alternative review, docket ESS-26-248. Two public information meetings are set, Monday, Oct. 19 at 6pm online and Tuesday, Oct. 20 at 6pm at the Sauk Rapids Government Center, 250 Summit Ave N in Sauk Rapids. The commission will take comment at those meetings on the need for and scope of an addendum to the environmental assessment and on special permit conditions. Written comments close Nov. 3. The application puts construction in the third quarter of 2027 and commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2028. The site plan includes battery cabinets, inverters and transformers, underground collection and communication cables, access roads, a stormwater basin, and an off-site operations building.

Source: Minnesota EQB Monitor, Oct. 13

ENG  Minnesota cities have a new toolkit for weighing data center proposals. Researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Freshwater Society released it last Friday at a Rochester workshop for planners, administrators, and elected officials from across southeast Minnesota. It is the product of a year of work and is built to help city leaders decide what code provisions to adopt before a proposal arrives. Project lead Elise Harrington, a University of Minnesota public affairs professor, framed the work as addressing a data center before a city has one. The work started with administrators in Byron, Stewartville, and Lewiston who wanted rules settled before an application landed. Byron city administrator Al Roder said the aim was to answer the questions “with facts instead of emotions.”

Source: MPR News, Oct. 14

POLICY  The Environmental Quality Board votes Oct. 21 on a new mandatory environmental review category. The rule would require an environmental assessment worksheet for any gas resource development project of five or more gas wells, and for a project of any size sited where the Department of Natural Resources prohibits surface disturbance or in a groundwater drinking water supply management area. That last threshold was added after the comment period in response to the Grand Portage Band and the Intertribal Helium Task Force. Three proposed thresholds come out, including a mandatory environmental impact statement for high-volume hydraulic fracturing, because the 2026 gas law prohibited the activities they covered. The rule runs under expedited rulemaking, Revisor R-4945. Staff recommend adoption. The board also decides whether to let the developer of Hillview Business Park, a 62-acre, 972,200-square-foot warehouse and office development in Arden Hills, begin demolition before its environmental impact statement is finished. Staff recommend denying it. The meeting runs 1pm to 4pm at 520 Lafayette Road in Saint Paul and online.

Source: Minnesota Environmental Quality Board, October 2026 board packet

PROJECTS  Mankato’s council accepted the Highway 169 feasibility study Tuesday night. The vote was unanimous. It fixes the city’s share of a $36.6 million project at $7.2 million, with MnDOT and North Mankato carrying the other $29.3 million. State aid and grant funding cover 60 percent of Mankato’s share, city sewer and water revenue covers 28 percent, and the remainder comes from the information technology capital fund, special assessments, and general obligation bonds. Interim city engineer Joseph P. Smith presented the study with MnDOT District 7 and called the grant package “a nice win for the city.” Construction is scheduled for next year, and the corridor work traces back to a 2019 preliminary findings study, a 2021 corridor study, and a 2024 cost participation resolution.

Source: Mankato Free Press, Oct. 13

BIZ  Contractor backlog rose for a second straight month in September. Associated Builders and Contractors put its Construction Backlog Indicator at 8.7 months, up 0.2 months on the month and on the year, from a member survey run Sept. 21 to Oct. 5. Commercial and institutional backlog reached its highest level since July 2025. Heavy industrial backlog fell to its lowest since March. The 15 percent of members under contract for data center work averaged 11.3 months of backlog, three months more than members without it. Among contractors above $100 million in annual revenue, 39 percent have data center work in hand, against one in ten below that line. Chief economist Anirban Basu said materials, labor, and borrowing costs continue to press on contractors. One in four expect margins to contract over the next six months, the highest share since November 2025, and sales expectations fell to an 11-month low.

Source: Associated Builders and Contractors, Oct. 13

ENG  Energy storage system failures dropped sharply between 2018 and 2025. An Electric Power Research Institute analysis credits technology and project improvements, and found that 93 percent of the battery storage safety incidents it reviewed worldwide caused no injury or death. No United States incident has injured anyone since an April 2019 explosion at an Arizona Public Service site that seriously hurt four firefighters, and that installation was commissioned before NFPA 855, the standard that now governs energy storage. Systems commissioned before 2021 account for 3 percent of global storage capacity. EPRI senior technical leader Lakshmi Srinivasan said owners of those systems should run risk assessments and correct what they find. Indoor installations fail at higher rates and sustain more damage than outdoor ones, and propagation barriers and fire walls limit the spread. Explosion retrofits range from flammable gas detectors inside enclosures to new ventilation and structural changes that direct pressure waves away from responders, and the larger retrofits can void a manufacturer’s warranty. Srinivasan said New York now lets local authorities charge developers for independent technical review of NFPA 855 exemption applications.

Source: Utility Dive, Oct. 13

PROJECTS  Olmsted County is deciding whether an 1895 bridge goes back where it stands. Frank’s Ford Bridge crosses the south fork of the Zumbro River at Oronoco, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and has been closed to traffic since 2011. The county intends to remove, rehabilitate, and reinstall it. Associate public works director Nathan Arnold said this week that the county is in the first of three planning phases, covering cost, timeline, and feasibility for each option, and expects to finish it within six months. A petition against relocation carried 450 signatures as of Tuesday. The county is working with the Army Corps of Engineers and the State Historic Preservation Office, and a Corps permit is required to remove the bridge. The preservation office told the Corps in December 2025 that removal from its historic location “will diminish all seven aspects of the bridge’s integrity.”

Source: KTTC, Oct. 13

POLICY  State regulators have opened a three-meeting review of energy affordability. The Public Utilities Commission heard from consumer advocates, business groups, and utilities on Tuesday in the first session. Commission staff say Minnesota’s average residential electric bill is among the lowest in the country, while advocates say customers who fall behind now owe twice what they did before the pandemic. Speakers raised income-based payment plans, easier access to assistance, and closer scrutiny of utility spending. Attorney General Keith Ellison said a household rationing energy in a way that endangers its health does not have an affordable bill. The next sessions are Nov. 2 and Dec. 8, and the commission is taking written comments while it considers changes.

Source: InForum, Oct. 13

PROJECTS  MnDOT is replacing the Stillwater Lift Bridge drive motor. Work begins Monday, Oct. 19 on the motor and on the festoon electrical cable that powers it, along with the steel platforms, ladders, and railings. The span makes its final lift of the season at 11:59pm Tuesday, Oct. 20, closing the summer lift schedule for marine traffic on the Saint Croix River, and it stays down until spring unless a boater requests a lift 24 hours ahead. Crews work weekdays from 8am to 5pm. The south sidewalk stays open throughout, and the former driving surface is fenced off during the week and reopens on weekends. The bridge carries a five-mile bicycle and pedestrian loop trail between Minnesota and Wisconsin. The lift schedule resumes in spring 2027 and the work is set to finish by mid-May 2027.

Source: MnDOT, Oct. 13

BIZ  Two Harbors has signed a development agreement for a helium processing plant. The city council approved the agreement with Pulsar Helium on Monday. It sets a framework for a rare gas hub on 62 acres in the city’s industrial district, with helium liquefaction and carbon capture. The agreement does not commit Pulsar to building it. Financing, property review, utility arrangements, supporting agreements, and further approvals all remain, with more public review to come. Pulsar is talking to the Department of Employment and Economic Development, the Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation, and the United States Department of Agriculture’s rural development arm about financing. The company has been testing a Minnesota helium deposit since 2021 and says the results point to one of the most concentrated deposits ever recorded. President Cliff Cain said the next step is getting into production.

Source: KAXE, Oct. 13

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