GridCourt to decide a Minnesota’s “Buy the Farm” case

Minnesota’s “Buy the Farm” law is the center of a case set for trial later this week, in which developers of CapX2020, the region’s power grid improvement project, will contest a lawsuit by Cedar Summit Farm. The state law requires utilities building high-voltage power lines to buy out farms along the path of the power line if the affected landowners demand it. Cedar Summit Farm owners, Dave and Florence Minar, claim they are unable to operate an organic farm under a 345,000-volt power line, so they want CapX2020 developers to buy their farm and pay the costs of relocating their operations.

The Star Tribune notes that the case is one of many land disputes between farm owners and CapX2020, the $2 billion initiative by eleven utilities to expand and improve the reliability of the region’s power grid.

“Our whole business is at stake,” Dave Minar said. “We don’t want to continue dairy farming under high-voltage power lines.” The Minars are worried that stray voltage from power lines and equipment can give cows small shocks, making it difficult for them to consume food, which then leads to reduced milk production and other health problems in the cows. “They’re saying we won’t have a problem, but I don’t believe them,” Dave Minar said.

Rod Krass, attorney for the Minars, claims that the family meets the criteria a landowner must meet to exercise an “election” for a buyout and relocation costs. “Everything that can be contested, they’re (CapX2020 officials) contesting,” Krass said. “And so this has put incredible pressure and stress on this family. We’re not understanding — given the Legislature’s obvious intent to protect people like the Minars — why we’re having to go through all of this.”

In a statement, CapX2020 officials insist the Minars are ineligible because their operation counts as commercial land, and that only one transmission tower would be on their land. “Under the statute, commercial land is not eligible for election. In addition, the Supreme Court has held that a reasonableness requirement must be read into the statute,” the statement said. “The CapX2020 utilities have challenged the reasonableness of this election because it involves only one transmission structure that occupies less than one acre on a 132-acre property that includes a commercial dairy operation and retail store.”

The Minars claim that if they win the case, relocating would be difficult since they would need 400 relatively contiguous acres close to the Twin Cities, near their customer base. Finding such land which is already certified as organic would be a challenge, and it would take three years to transform conventional farmland to certified organic. Products from the Minars’ farm, including milk, are sold at most natural food stores in the Twin Cities area and around the region. The Minars say they cannot continue their business successfully after three years without production. “We didn’t ask for this power line. It’s taken a chunk out of our lives for the last four or five years,” Dave Minar said.