Panel working on wetland restoration order

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- A panel of state, county and city officials is working on a wetland restoration order following the recent discovery that a City of New Ulm-owned natural gas pipeline went though county and state wetlands without a permit.

The pipeline belongs to the New Ulm Public Utilities Commission and is meant to hook into the 90-mile natural gas line owned and operated by the city of Hutchinson.

According to NUPUC Director Gary Gleisner, the majority of the pipeline was completed before Christmas by a Duluth-based contractor, Minnesota Limited, which won the contract with a $700,000 bid this summer. He said the city is still buying gas from its old supplier until the matter is resolved.

That construction was halted one month ago by a "cease-and-desist" order, served on the city's construction contractor, after a DNR conservation officer discovered the pipeline was not following the route officials had originally specified.

NUPUC representatives had said that the line was mostly going to use public rights-of-way and as such, would not require a permit except for the remaining portion of the route that was outside the city's boundaries. Brown County commissioners granted NUPUC a conditional use permit for parcels of land in Milford Township this past July. The New Ulm line doesn't require a state permit because it operates at a lower pressure than the Hutchinson line.

Gleisner said he doesn't have a good explanation for the dilema "other than someone should've done a better job of determining where the wetlands are."

The New Ulm pipeline's current route affects a subplain with the Minnesota River and goes through a DNR wildlife management area wetland, said Chris Hughes, a hydrologist for the state Board of Soil and Water Resources in New Ulm.

The "cease-and-desist" order was issued by the DNR for violations of the Wetland Conservation Act. Under that law, local units of government are responsible for enforcing the act. Brown County is responsible for the parts of the land that are not owned by the city of New Ulm or by the DNR. The DNR is responsible for enforcing the act within its wetlands.

The restoration order could include anything from ordering the city to actually move the pipeline back to the route it originally said it intended to allowing the line to stay in place, provided that the city follows conditions outlined in the restoration order.

"The problem lies in that they didn't do what they said they were going to do," Hughes said.

The panel came together to review the project's status and figure out which steps to take in order to resolve the matter after the DNR ordered the pipeline contractor to cease operations on Dec. 9. It consists of representatives from the Brown County Planning and Zoning Department, the DNR, the BWSR, the Army Corps of Engineers and the NUPUC.

Brown County Planning and Zoning Administrator Jane Starz said the panel is going to start working on a draft of a restoration order in the coming weeks and said no timeline is set for a final draft.

Following the Brown County board's July vote, the NUPUC hired a Brown County Highway Department employee to serve as the pipeline inspector. According to Starz, the same person served as the inspector on the Hutchinson pipeline.

"We otherwise assumed they would follow the plan," she said. "We weren't out there watching every minute."

Starz said Brown County has issued restoration orders before, although they aren't used very often. Typically, wetland issues in Brown County only involve one landowner, she said.

"This situation is very unique. It's not just a single landowner and it's not just a single piece of land," said Starz.