October 5, 2010
Minnesota

Goodhue Wind shrugs off township order to ‘desist’

By Arundhati Parmar, Finance & Commerce, finance-commerce.com 4 October 2010

A proposed wind-energy project in southeastern Minnesota is pitting a local township’s board against the wind farm’s developers.

Last week, the Belle Creek Township board’s attorney sent a “cease and desist” letter to AWA Goodhue LLC, the developer of a 32,500-acre wind-turbine project in Goodhue County. The letter states that the developers have been doing construction work within the borders of the township in violation of an interim ordinance that the board approved earlier this summer.

On Friday, AWA Goodhue Wind’s attorney responded by essentially questioning whether the interim ordinance the board approved has any legal force under Minnesota law.

Minneapolis-based National Wind is the local developer of AWA Goodhue LLC, which is managing the project that aims to build 50 turbines. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) and Goodhue County board of commissioners approved the project earlier this year, but it ran into opposition from residents who live near the 32,700-acre site.