Hampton backed on power line

A citizens group from Hampton, Minn., scored a partial victory Thursday in its fight to keep part of the 700-mile CapX2020 power line project out of its neighborhood.

Administrative Law Judge Richard Luis in St. Paul said Thursday he's recommending that a leg of the high-voltage transmission project run one mile north of the farm town of Hampton instead of through the more densely populated area that had been proposed. Farmers affected by the more northern route opposed it there, too.

The decision was just one of several recommendations made in an unusually detailed 163-page document headed to the state Public Utilities Commission, which has 60 days to make a final decision.

The opinion includes comments from the more than 1,200 people who wrote in and testified at public hearings that Luis held from November to January.

The $1.7 billion CapX project, being led by Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy and Great River Energy in Maple Grove, is one of the largest expansions of the power grid in state history.