CHICAGO – Construction of a power transmission line through the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge on the Iowa-Wisconsin border should not have been blocked by a lower court, a federal appeals court ruled. The U.S. Court of Appeals said the record was too skimpy for the 102-mile line to have been blocked. Environmentalists and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had opposed the Cardinal-Hickory Creek line linking Dubuque, Iowa, and Madison, Wisconsin, as an intrusion in the pristine wildlife refuge. Several companies sponsoring the project, including Dairyland Power of LaCrosse, noted that the line mostly would follow an existing highway and railroad through the refuge. They also noted that the line was designed to deliver clean wind energy reliably from Iowa to meet Wisconsin needs. The line is almost completed, albeit for the wildlife refuge section.
Through the Driftless region. The Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line is a $500 million project through southwest Wisconsin.