Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line Project Alternative Crossings Analysis
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Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line Project Alternative Crossings Analysis ITC Midwest LLC American Transmission Company LLC Dairyland Power Cooperative Cardinal-Hickory CreekTransmission Line Project April 2016 Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line Project Alternative Crossings Analysis prepared for ITC Midwest LLC American Transmission Company LLC Dairyland Power Cooperative Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line Project April 2016 prepared by Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company, Inc. Kansas City, Missouri COPYRIGHT © 2016 BURNS & McDONNELL ENGINEERING COMPANY, INC. Alternative Crossings Analysis Abstract/Note to Reviewer or Reader ABSTRACT/NOTE TO REVIEWER OR READER This Alternatives Crossings Analysis (ACA) report was developed specifically for use in the review of the Cardinal – Hickory Creek 345 kV Transmission Line Project by federal and state agencies, including the McGregor District of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service, the Iowa Utilities Board and the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin. The ACA is intended to provide information to these agencies to enable them to evaluate alternative Mississippi River crossing locations for the Cardinal – Hickory Creek Transmission Line Project. ITC Midwest, ATC, DPC Abstract-1 Burns & McDonnell Alternative Crossings Analysis Abstract/Note to Reviewer or Reader (This page intentionally left blank) ITC Midwest, ATC, DPC Abstract-2 Burns & McDonnell Alternative Crossings Analysis Executive Summary EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ES-1 Overview ITC Midwest LLC (ITC Midwest), along with American Transmission Company LLC by its corporate manager, ATC Management Inc., (together, ATC), and Dairyland Power Cooperative (Dairyland), a cooperative organized under the laws of Wisconsin (all collectively, the Utilities), propose to construct and own a 345 kilovolt (kV) transmission line connecting northeast Iowa and southwest Wisconsin. This Cardinal – Hickory Creek Transmission Line Project (Project) meets multiple needs: • Addresses reliability issues on the regional bulk transmission system. • Cost-effectively increases transfer capacity to enable additional renewable generation needed to meet state renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and support the nation’s changing energy mix. • Alleviates congestion on the transmission grid to reduce the overall cost of delivering energy. • Responds to public policy objectives aimed at enhancing the nation’s transmission system and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. ES-2 Project Description The Project would connect the Hickory Creek Substation in Dubuque County, Iowa, with the Cardinal Substation in the Town of Middleton, Wisconsin (near Madison, Wisconsin) with a new 345 kV transmission line, and would include construction of and a connection at a new intermediate substation near the Village of Montfort in either Grant County or Iowa County, Wisconsin. Between the Hickory Creek Substation and the Cardinal Substation, the Project must cross the Mississippi River. This area of the Mississippi River includes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)-managed Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (Refuge), the longest linear Refuge in the United States. The Refuge was established in 1924 as a refuge for fish, wildlife, and plants and a breeding place for migratory birds. The Refuge encompasses one of the largest blocks of floodplain habitat in the lower 48 states. Bordered by steep wooded bluffs that rise 100 to 600 feet above the river valley, the Mississippi River corridor and Refuge offer scenic beauty and productive fish and wildlife habitat. The Refuge lies within the Mississippi Flyway, a migration pathway for birds. The Refuge extends north to south through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois for approximately 260 river miles and covers just over 240,000 acres. The Refuge is designated as a Wetland of International Importance (Ramsar) and a Globally Important Bird Area (GIBA) (USFWS, 2014a). ITC Midwest, ATC, DPC ES-1 Burns & McDonnell Alternative Crossings Analysis Executive Summary The Cardinal – Hickory Creek Initial Study Area was designed around the necessary connection points for this Project and is shown below in Figure ES-1. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (MISO), the regional transmission organization, has approved the Project. The in-service date for the Project is 2023. The Project would be approximately 125 miles long, depending on the final authorized route and the MISO estimated costs are $500 million (2023 dollars). ES-3 Purpose and Need The Utilities are transmission-owning members of MISO. In 2011, as part of the 2011 MISO Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP), MISO designated the Project a Multi-Value Project (MVP) as part of a portfolio of transmission projects developed to provide economic, reliability, and public policy benefits across what was then the entire MISO footprint – all or portions of 13 states. The MISO footprint is currently comprised of all or portions of 15 states and 1 Canadian province (MISO, 2014a). MISO developed a portfolio of 17 MVPs through a comprehensive and broad stakeholder analysis and confirmed the portfolio’s benefits in the 2014 MTEP Triennial MVP Review (Triennial MVP Review). The MISO MVP designation for the Project is built upon years of study efforts aimed at ensuring that the regional transmission system can reliably and cost-effectively deliver renewable energy necessary to meet state renewable portfolio requirements. A 345 kV connection between eastern Iowa and the Madison, Wisconsin, area, which the Project would provide, has been under study since at least 2008, when the governors of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa established the Upper Midwest Transmission Development Initiative (UMTDI) to undertake a joint planning effort to identify regional electric transmission investment necessary to comply with their respective RPS. After two years of study, the UMTDI identified “no regrets” or “first mover” transmission lines in their states that would be cost-effective and needed under a variety of future scenarios. Among the first mover projects that were identified was a 345 kV line with endpoints near Dubuque, Iowa, and Madison, Wisconsin. Also in 2008, MISO, in conjunction with state utility regulators and industry stakeholders, commenced a Regional Generator Outlet Study (RGOS) effort to meet renewable generation requirements within the MISO footprint. The RGOS effort evaluated multiple future transmission scenarios identifying transmission investments that would deliver renewable energy at the lowest per megawatt hour cost over the MISO territory. In 2010, the RGOS study effort culminated in a proposed portfolio of candidate projects that, like the UMTDI, included a 345 kV line between Dubuque, Iowa, and Madison, Wisconsin, in the portfolio. ITC Midwest, ATC, DPC ES-2 Burns & McDonnell Alternative Crossings Analysis Executive Summary As one of the MVPs, the purpose of the Project is to enhance the reliability of the regional bulk transmission system and to cost-effectively enable the delivery of renewable energy necessary to satisfy state RPS. The Project is also designed to relieve congestion on the transmission system to reduce the overall cost of delivering energy. In addition, the Project would respond to public and Executive policy objectives aimed at enhancing the nation’s transmission system and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.1 ES-4 Alternative Crossings Analysis Study Report Although the Cardinal – Hickory Creek Initial Study Area (Figure ES-1) includes the entire length of the Project from the Hickory Creek Substation to the Cardinal Substation, the Utilities began their route analysis for the Project by focusing on the crossing of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River crossing location that is ultimately selected would determine the potential Project routes in both Iowa and Wisconsin. The Alternative Crossings Analysis (ACA) documents the Utilities’ investigation and assessment of potential Mississippi River crossing locations for the Project and identifies the Utilities’ preferred crossing alternative. Utilities have been meeting with USFWS Refuge and ecological services staff since April 2012 to discuss potential Mississippi River crossings, including crossings of the Refuge. The National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 provides that the Refuge is to be managed to “fulfill the mission of the System, as well as the specific purposes for which that refuge was established.”2 The Act grants the United States Department of Interior’s Secretary the power to grant new rights-of-way (ROW) in the Refuge for power line use “whenever he determines that such uses are compatible with the purposes for which these areas are established.”3 1 Public and Executive policy objectives include Presidential memoranda, Modernizing Federal Infrastructure Review and Permitting Regulations, Policies and Procedures (May 17, 2013); Presidential memoranda, Transforming Our Nation’s Electric Grid Through Improved Siting, Permitting and Review (June 7, 2013); President’s Executive Order, Improving Performance of Federal Permitting and Review of Infrastructure Projects (March 22, 2012); President’s Climate Action Plan (June 2013); the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan under the Clean Air Act, Section 111(d) (released on August 3, 2015); the USFWS’s policy on climate change, Rising to the Urgent Challenge: