The (Almost) Daily Brief

Settlement Sends Pine Island Data Center Into New State Environmental Review

By Megan Dayton · 10/29/2026

ENG  The Environmental Protection Agency released MOVES6 and started a two-year clock for transportation conformity work. The agency announced availability of the model on Oct. 27 and opened a grace period that ends Oct. 27, 2028. After that date MOVES6 is required for new regional emissions analyses and new hot-spot analyses in transportation conformity determinations. A separate two-year grace period governs regional emissions analyses prepared for state implementation plans. Conformity determinations already completed with MOVES5 or MOVES4 stand, and during the grace period an analysis run on MOVES5 may not rely on MOVES5 national defaults where MOVES6 carries updated inputs. The notice carries docket FRL-13436-01-OAR, and names the affected entities as those that adopt, approve, or fund transportation plans, transportation improvement programs, or projects.

Source: Federal Register, 91 FR 67565, Oct. 27

POLICY  The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has put a draft municipal separate storm sewer system general permit on public notice through Nov. 19. The draft reissues the general permit that governs stormwater programs at permitted cities, and formal comment opened Oct. 19. It prohibits firefighting foams containing PFAS under minimum control measures 3 and 6. A new Section 23 lets permittees develop water quality trading programs to meet wasteload allocations. The draft sets frequencies for activities such as education and training, revises definitions, and reorganizes the permit to address the Environmental Protection Agency remand rule. The agency held an informational webinar Oct. 28 and has posted the recording. It is targeting summer 2027 for reissuance, and the 2020 permit stays administratively continued until then.

Source: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, draft MS4 general permit

PROJECTS  MnDOT named a four-lane freeway as the preferred alternative for Highway 252 and published two draft environmental impact statements on it. The department released a federal draft statement under the National Environmental Policy Act and a separate state draft statement under the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act on Oct. 23. Spokesman Ricardo Lopez attributed the split to federal environmental review changes in early 2025 that left Minnesota requirements unaddressed. The preferred alternative converts Highway 252 between Highway 610 and the Interstate 694 interchange from a signalized highway to a freeway with two lanes in each direction and bus shoulders. It adds interchanges at 85th Avenue, Brookdale Drive, and 66th Avenue, a multimodal crossing at 73rd Avenue, four pedestrian and bicycle bridges, and a separate road on southbound Highway 252 between Brookdale Drive and the Interstate 694 interchange. Interstate 94 keeps its lane count. Against no build, the department projects a 25 percent cut in serious crashes and a 41 percent cut in crashes overall. The comment period runs to Dec. 22, with hearings at Brooklyn Park on Nov. 10, Brooklyn Center on Nov. 12, and Minneapolis on Nov. 19, and an online meeting Dec. 8 at 5:30pm. The final statement and the design decision follow in 2027, and construction is expected to begin in 2029.

Sources: MnDOT, Hwy 252/I-94 draft EIS; Sun Post, Oct. 27

POLICY  The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency takes multi-sector general permit and no exposure certification applications through Oct. 31 for the 2025-2030 industrial stormwater cycle. The agency has removed the benchmark monitoring waiver that let permittees cite previously meeting benchmark values under the 2020-2025 permit, and it will deny waiver requests made on that justification. The University of Minnesota Erosion and Stormwater Management Program is running two in-person sessions at the MnDOT Arden Hills facility that meet the permit training requirement, on Nov. 12 from 9am to 4pm and Nov. 18 from 1:30pm to 4pm.

Source: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency industrial stormwater bulletin, Oct. 28

FUNDING  The Minnesota Department of Revenue has processed $1.02 billion in sales tax exemptions for data centers since 2015. An analysis by KSTP5 Investigates puts the electricity exemption at 13 percent of reimbursements to 42 data centers. Lawmakers ended the sales tax exemption on electricity in 2025. Currently exempt facilities draw 5 to 10 megawatts. Minnesota law requires no standardized reporting of jobs or economic development tied to the incentive. Representative Patty Acomb, who worked on the 2025 data center regulation, called the figures startling and said the total excludes hyperscale data centers. Brad Tietz of the Data Center Coalition said limiting the incentives could put Minnesota at a disadvantage.

Source: KSTP 5 Investigates, Oct. 26

POLICY  The Public Utilities Commission opened a comment period on a 765-kilovolt transmission plan that would cross southern Minnesota. The commission will hold nine public hearings between Nov. 9 and Nov. 16 on the certificate of need filed by Great River Energy, ITC Midwest, and Xcel Energy for the PowerOn Midwest project, docket 25-117, and has released the environmental report. The project would build 340 miles of new 765-kilovolt line, add 345-kilovolt circuits on replacement or existing structures, and expand and upgrade substations. It sits inside Tranche 2.1 of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator long range transmission plan, approved in July 2024 under the 2024 transmission expansion plan. The system operator and the applicants identify a need for up to 10,000 megawatts of added transmission capacity in Minnesota. The applicants filed the certificate of need application Mar. 16. Administrative Law Judge Joseph Meyer will preside and give the commission findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a recommendation. Hearings run at Pipestone and Slayton on Nov. 9, Worthington and Windom on Nov. 10, Sherburn and Wells on Nov. 12, Austin on Nov. 13, and Kasson and online on Nov. 16. Written comments close Dec. 7 at 4:30pm.

Sources: Environmental Quality Board Monitor, Oct. 27; Minnesota PUC, Energy Infrastructure Permitting (PowerOn Midwest)

BIZ  Morrissey Goodale has entered a strategic partnership with Greenwood Advisors, the mergers and acquisitions platform of Springdale Industries. Springdale is an internally managed permanent capital investment firm whose founders were formerly affiliated with Blackstone, Carlyle, and Apollo. It builds platform companies by partnering with founder-led businesses. Mick Morrissey and Mark Goodale announced the partnership Oct. 26 and said the firm’s mission is unchanged. They cite continued consolidation across the A/E industry, and ownership transition decisions growing more complex. The announcement discloses no deal terms. Morrissey Goodale advises A/E firm leaders on strategy, valuation, and mergers.

Source: Morrissey Goodale, Oct. 26

POLICY  Proclamation 11074 put wind turbine imports under a national security finding and ordered trade talks in place of a new tariff. The proclamation, signed Oct. 22 and published Oct. 28, adopts the Commerce Secretary’s finding under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act that imported wind turbines and their parts and components threaten to impair national security. It directs the Secretary and the United States Trade Representative to pursue agreements with trading partners and to report on the negotiations within 180 days, and it reserves alternative remedies if no agreement is reached in that window. It also states that certain wind turbine components and subcomponents remain subject to the existing section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper. The report behind it cites cybersecurity exposure in imported inverters, radar interference, and reliance on imported blades against flat domestic blade capacity.

Source: Federal Register, 91 FR 68001, Oct. 28

PROJECTS  Columbia Heights chose Saint Paul-based Oertel Architects over Wold Architects and Engineers for the $1.67 million design contract on a new $33.8 million municipal service center. The city council voted Oct. 26. The contract covers interior and exterior design, engineering services, and cost estimating. The 80,000-square-foot building replaces a 56-year-old public works facility at 637 38th Avenue Northeast that the city says cannot house modern heavy equipment and has developed structural issues, and it goes on a city-owned site next to the existing 56,000-square-foot building. Oertel assessed that building in 2021 and found deterioration of reinforcing steel, accessibility deficiencies, and design flaws that allowed moisture intrusion. City Manager Aaron Chirpich said the city solicited proposals from five design firms with public works experience, and that the proposed fees from the finalists were $50,000 apart, which he called very tight. Federal grants and the 2026 state bonding bill have supplied $4 million. The city agreed last spring to issue general obligation bonds. Construction bids are targeted for summer 2027, with groundbreaking planned for fall 2027.

Source: Finance and Commerce, Oct. 28

POLICY  The City of Harmony’s Planning and Zoning Commission advanced a data center ordinance to the city council on its sixth draft. The commission voted the evening of Oct. 28, after a public hearing, on regulatory standards for data center development in the Fillmore County city. The next council meeting is Nov. 10. One speaker supported the draft. Others raised quality of life, noise, and environmental concerns, and several questioned how candid the city has been about the process. The draft sets standards for developing and operating data centers while preserving rural character and environmental resources. No specific project has been announced in Harmony.

Source: KTTC, Oct. 29

ENG  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration granted Obayashi-Jay Dee Joint Venture permanent relief from the compressed-air decompression tables in its construction standard. The variance took effect Oct. 29 and runs until the Cemetery Brook Drain Tunnel Project in Manchester, New Hampshire finishes or the agency modifies or revokes it. The variance covers the decompression tables in Appendix A of 29 CFR 1926 subpart S and the requirement for automated operational controls and a special decompression chamber. The joint venture did not seek relief from the maximum pressure provision. In place of the agency tables it will use the 1992 French decompression tables, which stage decompression and supplement breathing air with air or oxygen. Workers enter the excavation chamber of the tunnel boring machine only for hyperbaric interventions, inspecting or maintaining the cutter head and changing replaceable cutting tools and wear bars, and the chamber holds three people. The agency received no comments on the interim order. It has granted the same relief on the Anacostia River Tunnel in Washington, the Southerly Tunnel and Consolidation Project in Cleveland, and the Suffolk County outfall tunnel in New York. This grant reaches only the Manchester project.

Source: Federal Register, 91 FR 68173, Oct. 29

POLICY  The Environmental Quality Board refused to let Maplewood Development and Construction demolish buildings at Arden Hills before the environmental impact statement is finished. The board voted Oct. 21 to deny the variance application for the Hillview Business Park, a 62-acre site on the former Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant property. Arden Hills is preparing the statement as the responsible governmental unit. Board rules bar construction activity before an impact statement is complete, and allow a variance only to avoid a serious threat to public health or safety. The developer argued that demolishing abandoned buildings was necessary to reduce trespassing, vandalism, and fires while the city completed the statement.

Source: Environmental Quality Board Monitor, Oct. 27

PROJECTS  Hermantown reset its data center vote to 6:30pm Friday, Oct. 30 after protesters closed two meetings. The City Council was set to take six resolutions on the 1.66-million-square-foot Google data center at its Oct. 26 meeting. They cover a special-use permit for the site, a plat consolidating 22 existing properties into three lots, rejection of a citizen petition for an environmental assessment worksheet, a development agreement with Google, a cooperative agreement with Saint Louis County, and protections for the city if the building stops operating as a data center. After more than two hours of chanting, the police chief declared an unlawful assembly and cleared the building. The city canceled the Oct. 27 session, citing early voting in the council chambers until 7pm. The Friday meeting at City Hall is limited to the first 85 visitors, with a virtual option and written comment to noon that day. The Environmental Quality Board listed the petition on Oct. 27 as the Harmony Group Data Center, a project name unrelated to the city of Harmony, with Hermantown assigned as the responsible governmental unit.

Sources: Duluth News Tribune, Oct. 27; Environmental Quality Board Monitor, Oct. 27

ENG  MnDOT posted two consultant solicitations, one on lower-carbon concrete pavement and one on Metro District spot mobility. The department posted request for proposals 1064490 on Oct. 27 and takes responses to 2pm Nov. 19. The work investigates production, placement, and performance of concrete pavement built with innovative materials and mix designs that lower carbon content, and characterizes the feasibility of putting re-recycled concrete materials into a test section exposed to the Minnesota climate. The scope cites 2.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide produced by the cement industry in 2016, 7 percent of emissions that year. The department also posted a letter-of-interest solicitation on Oct. 28 for the Spot Mobility Implementation Analysis, the Metro District program formerly called the Congestion Management Safety Plan, with costs not anticipated to exceed $400,000 and responses due Nov. 30.

Source: MnDOT professional and technical notices

PROJECTS  Kenyon learned from its power agency that the industrial park may lack the electrical capacity a cannabis facility under construction needs. City Administrator Scott Lehner told the City Council the city may have to pay millions of dollars it had not budgeted. Kenyon Municipal Utilities works with the Central Municipal Power Agency and Services, which told Lehner at a meeting the week before the Oct. 13 council meeting that the city needs a new transformer that should have been ordered years ago. Lehner put the transformer at upwards of a million dollars. The agency also recommended an electrical substation to draw on Xcel Energy power, which Lehner put at $3 million to $5 million and three years out, with planning starting now. Lehner said most of the cost falls on the city, and that the agency was hearing that information for the first time at that meeting.

Source: Kenyon Leader, Oct. 27

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