Under construction
Construction season begins in Minot regionBy JILL SCHRAMM, Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com
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Warm sunshine signals a change of seasons in North Dakota. White snow banks are being replaced by orange traffic cones. Winter is gone and construction season has begun.
Already, the North Dakota Department of Transportation is preparing to begin replacing the U.S. Highway 2 & 52 bridge over the Burlington Northern tracks on the west side of Minot. During construction traffic will go one way in each direction on the east side of the highway.
Another project is scheduled to begin May 18 on U.S. Highway 83, south of Minot at the Snake Creek embankment. The roadway and guard rails will be replaced for about three miles, forcing traffic onto two lanes of the four-lane highway.
Around the area, contractors will be seal-coating N.D. Highway 5 through the city of Bottineau, repairing a bridge in Towner and reconstructing and doing
underground work on N.D. Highway 41 through Velva.
The big project for the City of Minot will be the reconstruction and realignment of 20th Avenue Southeast from Second to 13th streets. The work is the first phase of a project that will involve intersection changes at 13th Street and the U.S. 2 & 52 Bypass next year.
The work this year will relocate 20th Avenue slightly to the north and curve the road to connect with 13th Street at 18th Avenue rather than near the intersection with the bypass. Kroll's Diner will continue to be accessible from 20th Avenue and 13th Street, however.
Rusten Roteliuk, city engineer, said the project has long been needed and will increase safety. The project will cost about $3.4 million.
As part of regular maintenance, the city also has a street seal-coat project planned in north Minot, south of the airport.
Thanks to nearly $2 million in federal stimulus money, the city will be doing additional repairs this year.
The city plans three mill and overlay projects in northwest, west and southwest Minot. It has five seal-coat projects scheduled on 21st Avenue Northwest from the U.S. Highway 83 Bypass to 20th Street Northwest; 11th Avenue from 16th Street Southwest to Hiawatha; 31st Avenue from Broadway to 13th Street Southeast; Third Street from Fifth Avenue Northeast to Hillcrest; and 27th Street from Burdick Expressway to Railway Avenue.
Two bike paths are in the works. One will be built along 16th Avenue Southeast from Second to 13th Street. The other project will be the start of work on a path along the U.S. Highway 83 Bypass.
Ward County will be paving on County Road 14, starting about eight miles west of Wal-Mart on Broadway and continuing west for nine miles. The county also will be seal-coating County Road 23 from Deering to U.S. Highway 2 and from Sawyer to the county line. The seal-coating projects should each last only a week or two.
Dana Larsen, highway engineer, said more projects may be scheduled depending on whether money becomes available.
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Water projects
Other construction projects in Minot this summer include several water main replacements and sanitary sewer projects as well as construction of a booster pump station on Railway Avenue as part of the Eastside Water Improvement project. The city received a federal grant to lay water line to the east side of the energy park located on Minot's east side.
The city is awaiting the results of a grant application that would lead to more work on the First Larson Coulee sewer extension. The city also plans to construct a fourth landfill cell this summer.
Meanwhile, North Central Rural Water Consortium will be expanding rural water to an area south and southeast of Minot as part of the $3.2 million Radar Hill project. Other rural water projects in the Benedict and Anamoose area and the Deering and northern Ward County area could get under way later in the year. The Benedict-Anamoose project is estimated at $10 million and the Deering-North Ward project at $4.4 million.
Construction on 52 miles of pipeline from Berthold to Kenmare started April 27 through the Northwest Area Water Supply project. Contractors are working from Berthold toward Carpio, and also from Carpio toward Berthold. Once that section is finished, contractors will lay pipeline from Carpio to Kenmare. The pipeline will end near N.D. Highway 5, where construction could begin this fall on a pipeline to Mohall if design work and other preparations finish this summer, said Michelle Klose, project manager with the North Dakota Water Commission.
A storage tank will be built at Kenmare, starting in June. Work that began last year continues on a high-service pump station near the Minot Water Treatment Plant in Minot.
Also in June, NAWS expects to begin work on a pipeline in the Bottineau area. The 13 miles of pipe will run from the All Seasons Water Users District treatment plant to Gardena and will be part of a system to bring water to Upham.
Construction of a NAWS connection to bring water to Burlington and West River Water District should begin this fall. Klose said there are issues related to railroad easements that could delay construction until 2010, however.
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Energy projects
Another pipeline project is a natural gas line that will connect the Bakken field with markets in eastern states.
Pecan North Dakota, a subsidiary of EOG Resources Inc., will be building a 12-inch, 80-mile pipeline. The Prairie Rose Gathering Line would begin at the gas-processing plant near Stanley and interconnect with Alliance Pipeline about 20 miles northwest of Towner. Construction will start in June, and the pipeline is expected to be in service in third quarter 2009.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Bismarck, will be adding three wind turbines to the two that exist in the PrairieWinds development south of Minot.
Five miles south of the current turbines. PrairieWinds plans to erect 77 turbines, producing 11.5 megawatts of electricity that will go into the Western Area Power grid.
Daryl Hill, spokesman for Basin Electric, said the company still is getting the final approvals, but work could start in early summer. The initial work will involve land excavation. Contractors could be erecting turbines by the end of the year. The project will bring about 150 construction workers and an increase in truck traffic, Hill said.
The Public Service Commission will hold a hearing May 26 in Bismarck on a certificate of site capability for the project.
Iberdrola Renewables of Portland, Ore., plans to begin construction on a wind farm near Rugby as soon as weather permits. The project could be completed late this year or early in 2010, company spokesperson Jan Johnson said.
The Rugby Wind Project will include 71 turbines capable of producing 149 megawatts of power.
Iberdrola announced recently that Missouri River Energy Services of Sioux Falls, S.D., will purchase 40 megawatts of wind energy from the Rugby Wind Project. MRES is the first utility to contract for output from the project.
The addition of the 40 megawatts from the Rugby project will bring the total wind power capacity of MRES to 82.4 megawatts, almost all of which has been added to the MRES generation portfolio in the past two years. The 40 megawatts is enough electricity to power almost 11,000 homes.
MRES, based in Sioux Falls, is an organization of 60 member communities in the states of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. MRES provides supplementary energy to Missouri River hydroelectric power to North Dakota communities of Riverdale, Valley City, Cavalier, Hillsboro, Lakota and Northwood.
Sequoia Energy U.S. Inc. of Winnipeg has delayed the start on its 150-megawatt Border Wind projects near Rolla until next year.
"We might be able to do something by the end of 2009 but it's looking more like 2010," said Ian Witherspoon, manager of project development, Killarney, Manitoba. "We are continuing to finish up with the studies and permitting activities in order to get ready for construction."
Construction could bring 200 to 300 employees to the area, he said. Sequoia is projecting about 15 permanent employees once the 68-turbine wind farm is in operation.
No firm date for construction of the Hartland Wind Farm northwest of Minot has been set, but Curt Johnson, chief executive officer and chairman of Denali Energy Inc. of Baxter, Minn., said it may start in 2011. The project will be spread over about 1.2 million acres northwest of Minot to the Canadian border.
Hartland recently received favorable news in mid-April when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved financial incentives for ITC Holdings Corp's Green Power Express power line project that will move wind-generated electricity from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. The project would transmit up to 12,000 megawatts of wind energy over a 3,000-mile high voltage power line to Chicago, Minneapolis and southeastern Wisconsin.
ITC's next step was to ask the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator to review its multi-state project. In addition to ITC, American Electric Power of Colorado has plans for transmission facilities that could aid Hartland.
"We have two of the largest firms in the U.S. working for our benefit," Johnson said. "To that end, we are continuing to secure land and we will be out there all summer long on a every other week basis, continuing to work with landowners. We have to build a very large project to justify the development of the transmission line."
Hartland will be installing four additional meteorological towers for measuring wind resources this summer. It will be conducting bird studies that will aid in developing an environmentally friendly project and will have people surveying to do some site verification.
"We will have a major presence and we are looking forward to being out there," Johnson said.
Because lack of housing is a work force issue that could affect the company, Denali has been working with communities to identify areas where there is a strong market for new housing.
Even though housing is a separate industry from wind energy, Johnson said, Denali is poised to jump in to develop housing projects whenever oil activity picks up again.
