PLATTEVILLE — The three companies building the Cardinal-Hickory Creek power transmission line informed the state Public Service Commission that the project would cost more than its initial $492 million price tag.

For that and other reasons, four environmental groups opposed to the project are asking a federal judge to temporarily stop work on the project.

American Transmission Co., ITC Midwest and Dairyland Power Cooperative notified the PSC May 20 that the project will cost more than 10% beyond the project’s costs as estimated in 2018.

The notice blames “material price increases and ongoing legal expenses related to multiple challenges to the project’s federal and state authorizations.”

Cost increases include steel costs 93% more than estimated, 68% for conductor, and 10% for glass insulator.

Legal costs are tied to two federal cases that have been appealed to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago and a state case that has been appealed to the state Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court.

The PSC notice also reports “uncertainty” about the scheduled completion of the project in December 2023 resulting from a federal court decision banning the project from crossing the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge near Cassville. 

The developers are appealing the UMNWR decision by U.S. District Judge William Conley to the Seventh Circuit Court of appeals.

Also in the federal courts, four environmental groups are seeking a temporary halt to work on the project while federal and state lawsuits proceed.

The legal brief by Driftless Area Land Conservancy, National Wildlife Refuge Association, Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and Defenders of Wildlife was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin Friday.

The federal Court of Appeals May 6 denied a request by the power line’s developers to stay U.S. District Judge William Conley’s ruling to ban the power line’s crossing the wildlife refuge. Oral arguments are scheduled to be heard in September with a ruling sometime this fall. 

Conley March 1 reversed the January 2020 decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service to allow the power line to cross the refuge, negated the developers’ environmental impact statement, and issued a ruling that “precludes the CHC transmission line as currently proposed from crossing the refuge by right of way or land transfer.”

Chuck Tennessen of DALC said the developers are “currently building two transmission line segments to nowhere” because they “have no lawful path to cross the wildlife refuge and are unable to negotiate for a valid crossing until the Seventh Circuit decides the case.”

The DALC news release says the developers have already spent $276 million on the project, more than half of which was in the first quarter of this year. 

“They are wasting money that they are charging to ratepayers and they are causing unnecessary environmental damage and property damage,” said Howard Learner, an attorney for the environmental groups. “What they ought to be doing is pausing and stop wasting money.”

The news release says the groups “support less expensive more environmentally sound ways to provide clean energy security and reliability while building local economies and preserving the landscape and culture of the Driftless Area.’

Iowa and Dane counties are filing amicus briefs in support of the environmental groups’ brief, according to a DALC news release.

A case at the state Supreme Court seeks to invalidate the PSC’s unanimous approval of the project two years ago over an accusation of a conflict of interest with then-PSC commissioner Michael Huebsch, who engaged in encrypted communications with employees of one of the developers.

The resolution of that case will precede another state lawsuit that the PSC “arbitrarily and capriciously” approved the project and violated state environmental review laws.

Construction has been continuing on the Iowa and Wisconsin sides of the 101-mile-long project despite the ruling about the wildlife refuge. Neither the PSC nor the Iowa Utilities Board has ordered work to be stopped, nor have courts in Wisconsin or Iowa.

ATC is building the eastern part of the project from the Cardinal Substation in the Town of Middleton to the future Hill Valley Substation in Montfort. ITC Midwest will build the western half of the project from the Hill Valley Substation to the Nelson Dewey Substation north of Cassville. 

In Southwest Wisconsin, the project starts at the Nelson Dewey Substation on Grant County VV northwest of Cassville and goes near the U.S. 61/Wis. 81/Wis. 129 south intersection in Lancaster, heads northeast to the new substation in Montfort, then roughly follows U.S. 18 to Dodgeville and U.S. 18/151 around Mount Horeb before going northeast to the Cardinal substation.