|
U.S. District Judge William Conley issued a preliminary
injunction suspending U.S. government approvals for the land
swap during a hearing in Madison, Wisconsin, in a challenge to
the nearly complete $649 million Cardinal-Hickory Creek
high-voltage line brought by three environmental groups,
attorneys for the groups and representatives for the project
developers said.
The decision effectively blocks developers ITC Midwest and
Dairyland Power Cooperative from clear-cutting a path for the
line through the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and
Fish Refuge until Conley can consider the environmental groups'
challenge on its merits.
The developers said in a statement that they disagree with the
court's decision to block construction on the "last mile" of the
102-mile (164 km) project, and said permits were issued for the
project consistent with the government's authority under U.S.
environmental review and protection laws.
Howard Learner, an attorney for the environmental groups, said
the court made the right decision because the transmission line
would cause irreparable harm to the refuge.
The U.S. Interior Department and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
which were involved in approving the land exchange, declined to
comment. The exchange approved last month would swap around 20
acres (8 hectares) of refuge land in the path of the
transmission line to the developers in exchange for 35 acres of
land that would be added elsewhere to the refuge.
The power line is a joint project between ITC, Dairyland and a
third company, American Transmission Co LLC. The three companies
say the line will connect more than 160 renewable energy
projects to the Midwestern energy grid once complete.
Driftless Area Land Conservancy, the National Wildlife Refuge
Association and the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation sued the U.S.
government on March 6 seeking to block the land swap.
They claimed the federal approvals violated the National
Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act because building the
transmission line in the refuge would destroy floodplains and
fragment vital habitat for wildlife, which is inconsistent with
the refuge’s conservation purpose.
The project’s developers have said a years-long analysis of the
land swap showed it would improve the quality of the refuge and
increase its total area.
(Reporting by Clark Mindock in New York; Editing by Alexia
Garamfalvi and Matthew Lewis)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
