St. Paul, Minnesota – Today the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (“Commission”), on a unanimous vote, confirmed that a public meeting is to be held in each Minnesota County through which a route is proposed for the pending Line 3 Pipeline Replacement Project (“Line 3 Project”).

 

This will result in 22 separate meetings, conducted by the Department of Commerce (“Department”), at which information about the proposed project will be provided with opportunities for public participation and comment. The Department intends to hold all of these meetings over an upcoming three-week time frame.

 

The Commission instructed the Department that this directive does not require that public information meetings be held in counties in which a “System Alternative” [specifically, SA-04] is located because there is no proposal to locate any part of the Line 3 Project in those counties. A System Alternative relates to the Certificate of Need requirement for the project, not to the pipeline route. Note that SA-04 will be examined, and be the subject of public comment, as part of the environmental review conducted under the Certificate of Need process.

 

The Line 3 Project is a proposal by Enbridge Energy, Limited Partnership. The applicant describes the project as a new 337-mile long 36-inch diameter pipeline that would replace 282 miles of the existing 34-inch Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota. As proposed by the applicant, the pipeline would be located in Minnesota starting at a point on the Minnesota-North Dakota border near Hallock, Minnesota, to Clearbrook, and then to shipping points on Lake Superior crossing into Wisconsin at a point south of Carlton, Minnesota. Under this proposal, the existing Line 3 pipeline would be deactivated in place after the new pipeline is installed, tested, and operational.

 

Additional information and documents in these proceedings are available on the Commission’s website via the Commission’s e-Dockets system. The Certificate of Need filings can be found in Docket PL-9/CN-14-916 and the Pipeline Permit filings in Docket PL-9/PPL-15-137.