POLICY The Transportation Department withdrew $65.8 million from seven projects it had already selected for RAISE grants. The withdrawn awards cover capital construction and engineering and design work. They follow a March 11 department directive that set new discretionary-grant priorities and told officials to review earlier selections against them. Boston sued the department Sept. 28 to restore a $20 million award for its $34 million Roxbury Resilient Transportation Corridors project, which the department pulled in September 2025 on the ground that the proposal included electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The city says the charging stations were less than 1 percent of the proposal and offered to remove them. Albuquerque sued last year over an $11.47 million award toward its $14.33 million Rail Trail, after three years of monthly meetings with the Federal Highway Administration and the New Mexico Department of Transportation in which consultants worked through state and federal design comments. Chief U.S. District Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales refused to dismiss that case on July 31 and wrote that the withdrawal left the project in budgetary uncertainty. The department’s position is that a selection obligates nothing, because a grant agreement has to be executed first. The other withdrawn selections are $12.25 million for a Delaware bicycle and pedestrian connector, $11.75 million for Fairfield, Alabama, $5.73 million for design of Connecticut’s Naugatuck River Greenway, $3.9 million for a Central New York trail planning project, and $675,000 for planning and design of a Route 66 trail in McLean County, Illinois. The accounting comes from Democratic staff of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Source: Engineering News-Record, Sept. 29
ENG Blue Earth County opened comment on removing what is left of the Rapidan Dam. The environmental assessment worksheet went out in Tuesday’s EQB Monitor. The dam was built on the Blue Earth River in 1910 to generate electricity for the Mankato area, and floods in 1965, 2019, 2020, and 2024 damaged it until generation stopped. The June 2024 flood cut a new channel around the west abutment. The project would take out the remaining structures, let the river re-establish through the area, and stabilize adjacent land across 38.63 acres in Rapidan Township. The county has settled on a stabilized-slope alternative and submitted 60 percent plans to FEMA, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued an environmental assessment supporting removal. FEMA’s environmental review is under way, and a state Homeland Security and Emergency Management review follows before the county can sign a federal funding agreement. Comments close at 4pm Thursday, Oct. 29, and a public hearing runs at 7pm Wednesday, Oct. 7 at the Historic Courthouse at 204 South 5th Street in Mankato. The county separately awarded the County Road 9 bridge replacement to Redstone Construction on Sept. 8 at a bid 7 percent under estimate, with construction starting late this fall and the bridge reopening in the fall or winter of 2028.
Sources: Blue Earth County, Rapidan Dam; EQB Monitor, Sept. 29
FUNDING The advance appropriations Congress wrote into the 2021 infrastructure law expire at midnight tonight. The September stopgap carried Highway Trust Fund programs to Dec. 11 at fiscal 2026 levels but did not continue the advance appropriations, which came out of the general fund. The American Public Transportation Association puts the effect at a 20 percent cut to public transit investment and an 80 percent cut to passenger rail, and says smaller communities and rural towns are the most exposed. The National Precast Concrete Association says bridge funding stops immediately and points to the $5.5 billion the law put into the Bridge Investment Program. The Associated General Contractors of America says some state transportation departments pulled back on lettings this summer on doubts that a longer bill would pass in time, and that short extensions push agencies to phase projects into smaller pieces. The House of Representatives recessed Sept. 17, the Senate is expected to leave this week, and Congress is not expected back until Nov. 9. The multiyear replacement, BUILD America 250, cleared the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee 62 to 2 in May and still has no floor vote and no tax title.
Sources: Smart Cities Dive, Sept. 29; Construction Dive, Sept. 25
ENG The Metropolitan Airports Commission put the Airlake Airport runway extension out for public review. The draft federal environmental assessment and state environmental assessment worksheet cover reconstructing the 4,099 feet of Runway 12/30 and lengthening it to 4,850 feet, extending the Runway 12 end 271 feet and the Runway 30 end 480 feet, and shifting the Runway 12 landing threshold 120 feet east to clear the railroad. The work also extends Taxiways A and B, relocates Taxiways A1, B1, and A5, builds holding bays at both runway ends, modifies the Runway 30 approach lighting system, relocates 225th Street West outside the Runway 30 protection zone east of Cedar Avenue, relocates a stream on airport property, expands the fixed base operator apron, and expands a stormwater infiltration basin. Thirty trees come out to clear airspace penetrations. The commission began this review in 2022, paused it in 2023 while it worked with the Federal Aviation Administration and utility companies on lines that cross beneath the airfield, and restarted it in spring 2026. A public hearing runs at 10:30am Monday, Oct. 5 at the MSP Airport Conference Center in Terminal 1, and written comments close at 5pm Friday, Oct. 30.
Sources: Metropolitan Airports Commission, LVN environmental assessment; EQB Monitor, Sept. 29
ENG North Memorial Health wants to add 315,000 gross square feet to Maple Grove Hospital. The environmental assessment worksheet, published Tuesday, describes expanding the campus at 9875 Hospital Drive to the north and west and raising it to eight stories. The City of Maple Grove is the responsible governmental unit, and comments close Oct. 29.
Sources: City of Maple Grove, hospital EAW; EQB Monitor, Sept. 29
ENG A draft site permit is out for a battery rated to 200 megawatts in Cottonwood County. Plum Creek Storage proposes 800 megawatt-hours of storage in Ann Township, running alongside the already permitted Plum Creek Wind Project. The associated work is an onsite transformer, a stormwater pond, access roads, parking, and buried 34.5-kilovolt cable to a substation the commission has already permitted. The Public Utilities Commission issued its order and draft permit under docket ESS-26-157 and set two hearings, at 6pm Wednesday, Oct. 14 at the Westbrook Community Center at 849 5th Street and at 6pm Thursday, Oct. 15 online.
Sources: Minnesota PUC, Energy Infrastructure Permitting (Plum Creek BESS); EQB Monitor, Sept. 29
ENG Virginia shuts its municipal steam heat district for good on Nov. 2. Virginia Public Utilities will close the valve feeding the last active section, from Fourth Street South to Third Street North and east of Silver Lake, ending service the city has had since 1920. The district was built between 1920 and 1956 and some of the lines date to the beginning. General manager Greg French said the utility had 1,700 steam customers in 2017, 1,640 have converted to natural gas or electric heat, and 60 have not. He put this year’s losses on the steam district at $3.5 million, and the utility commission set out the shutdown plan in 2018. Virginia paid for no-interest conversion loans, free disconnects, and free natural gas connections out of its share of a $108 million Xcel Energy buyout of the former Laurentian Energy Authority, which it split with Hibbing Public Utilities. The steam line serving Essentia Health-Virginia also goes off, and the hospital expects to finish converting before mid-October.
Source: Mesabi Tribune, Sept. 29
Preliminary entries for ACEC Minnesota’s 60th annual Engineering Excellence Awards are due Thursday, Oct. 8, with winning projects recognized at the Feb. 18, 2027 gala. Public sales are open for the Minnesota Transportation Conference, and the four-session Emerging Leaders program for early-career staff runs this October and November.
State
MnDOT · ROC 52 ADA preliminary and final design in Rochester · due Sept. 30 at 2pm · Notice
MnDOT · contaminated materials technical support for state road construction · due Oct. 6 at 2pm · Notice
MnDOT · statewide ports and waterways plan update · due Oct. 8 at 2pm · Notice
State of Minnesota · environmental emergency response full service (37460) · due Oct. 9 · MNBuys
State Historic Preservation Office · Minnesota River cultural resources (5126) · due Nov. 9 · MNBuys
State Historic Preservation Office · Roseau River cultural resources (5127) · due Nov. 9 · MNBuys
MnDOT · general engineering consultant preconstruction services master contract · RFP anticipated early October · Advance notice
Regional
Vadnais Lake Area Water Management Organization · general engineering services 2027 and 2028 on call · due Sept. 30 at 4pm · RFP
Metropolitan Council · ultrasonic rail testing (26P133) · due Oct. 13 · RFP
Metropolitan Council · modernizing existing interchanges, 363 service interchanges (26P230) · due Oct. 14 · RFP
Metropolitan Council · Interceptor 1-MS-100 condition assessment (26P276) · pre-solicitation meeting Oct. 20 at 2pm · Notice
Counties
Washington County · Radio Drive pedestrian management study on CSAH 13 · due Oct. 2 at 3pm · RFP
Dakota County · County Road 50 and Interstate 35 interchange final engineering design · no date posted · Courtesy notice
Cities
City of Lanesboro · public facility energy audit · due Sept. 30 at 4pm · RFP
City of Golden Valley · 2050 comprehensive plan update · due Sept. 30 at 4:30pm · RFP
City of Woodbury · water and sanitary sewer rate study · due Oct. 1 at 5pm · RFP
City of Victoria · public works space needs study · due Oct. 2 at 4pm · RFP
City of Stacy · city engineer and city planner services · due Oct. 2 at 5pm · RFP
City of Medina · 2030-2050 comprehensive plan update · due Oct. 5 at 4pm · RFP
City of Waconia · 2050 comprehensive plan master consultant · due Oct. 9 · RFP
City of Morris · 2050 comprehensive plan update · due Oct. 10 · RFP
City of Hopkins · 2050 comprehensive plan public engagement · due Oct. 16 at 4:30pm · RFP
City of Foley · general municipal engineering services · due Oct. 28 at 4pm · RFP
Federal
Minnesota National Guard · architect-engineer services indefinite delivery contract, Saint Paul and Duluth · due Oct. 8 at 10am · Sources sought
The (Almost) Daily Brief publishes most weekdays: policy, funding, workforce, and industry news for Minnesota’s engineering firms, in a few minutes of reading.