March 15, 2026
By TIM HUNDT
The proposed MariBell transmission line continues to face intense scrutiny in the Driftless Area. Representatives from Dairyland Power Cooperative and GridLiance Heartland spent the past week fielding pointed questions from frustrated residents and local town boards during three distinct public meetings.
The project is a joint venture to build a 140 mile double circuit transmission line carrying 765 kilovolts and 161 kilovolts of electricity. Developers hosted two open house meetings in Gays Mills on March 10 and in Retreat on March 12. They also attended a town hall meeting hosted by the town boards of Wheatland and Genoa at the Redmound Community Center on March 11.
The difference in these open houses compared to earlier meetings is that an alternative route to the previously identified 161kv route has now been identified and mapped. Representatives clarified that while the utilities preferred route follows the existing 161 kilovolt transmission corridor the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin requires developers to identify at least one alternative route. That alternative route would largely follow an existing 69 kilovolt transmission line from the Mississippi River crossing at Genoa to Bell Center.
Representatives said the contractor managing right of way acquisitions, Doyle Land Services, has already contacted property owners along the preferred 161 kilovolt route and is now actively notifying landowners along the newly identified alternative route. Landowners are being contacted through a combination of letters phone calls and in person visits depending on the contact information available. The developers also sent mailer invitations for the recent open houses to landowners along both potential paths.
“We started making outreach to landowners back in the end of September,” said GridLiance senior director of transmission development Jessica Hewitt. “We have made contact with all of those folks and now with the alternative route being identified we are now making outreach to those landowners.”
The format of the open houses differed greatly from the town hall meeting. During the open houses in Gays Mills and Retreat citizens were invited to walk around a large room and visit various information stations. This setup allowed residents to speak one on one with specific subject matter experts from the utility companies. One of the most critical stations was operated by Doyle Land Services which is the contractor managing land and easement acquisitions for the project. At this station landowners were able to view precise maps of their individual properties and see exactly how the proposed transmission route and the alternative route would run in reference to their specific locations.
Many residents had previously expressed frustration with the open house format complaining that it prevented the public from hearing the answers to community questions. Residents got the chance to air those grievances publicly during the town hall meeting at Redmound which featured a formal presentation from developers followed by over an hour of direct question and answer session and spanning two hours total.
Laurie Dunham a director of development for GridLiance opened the town hall with a presentation explaining the origins of the project. Dunham told the crowd that the Midcontinent Independent System Operator spent years studying the entire Midwest grid and determined that congestion will increase as energy demand grows. She explained that the regional operator approved an 1800 mile backbone of 765 kilovolt lines to address these issues and assigned this specific 140 mile segment from Marion Minnesota to Bell Center Wisconsin to Dairyland Power.
“The line does support the load growth the reliability and the generation diversity,” said Dunham. “It is predicted to grow at 1.14 percent a year adding approximately 500 megawatts of additional demand.”
Dunham further explained that the 765 kilovolt option was chosen to minimize the project physical footprint. She noted that the alternative would require building up to six smaller transmission lines which would demand significantly more land.
“You would need three 345 double circuit lines for 450 feet of right away or six single circuit 345 lines for 900 feet of right away,” said Dunham. “The 765 design minimizes land use while maintaining high reliability.”
Following the presentation the panel of representatives attempted to answer a long list of questions previously submitted in writing by the two town boards. Out of about 100 written questions the panel answered about 40 of them. Following those questions the floor was opened to questions and a number of residents challenged the necessity and jurisdiction of the massive project.
One audience member asked if the project fell under federal or state authority and expressed concern that the region would be stripped of local control much like the contentious federal dam project in LaFarge decades ago. Rob Maly the land lead for Dairyland responded that while the project was approved by a federally regulated grid operator under Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the actual permitting and routing decisions remain at the state level with the Public Service Commission.
“The biggest permits are state,” said Maly. “Wisconsin is the Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity.”
Another resident asked what percentage of the new line was driven strictly by the decommissioning of old coal power plants versus actual new energy usage. GridLiance director of system planning Pat Jehring responded that the need is driven by a complex combination of factors rather than a single cause.
“There is no single one reason for this,” said Jehring. “It is really a combination of factors that are driving this and it is that combination of the transition of the generation fleet and the expected increase in demand across the region.”
The discussion shifted to who exactly would benefit from the electricity. Local resident Mark Randa challenged the developers arguing that the Driftless Area is not expanding and that the line is simply a pass through to serve massive data centers near Madison and Chicago.
“This area is not expanding and this is not a hot area,” said Randa. “We have to live with this for somebody else. You are putting it through and this is not the area for these gigantic towers.”
Randa demanded to know if the utilities were “leaving any power” in the local communities or just passing through. Jehring countered that the grid is entirely interconnected and that power from the new line would support the region.
“It is all interconnected so it absolutely is going to help relieve congestion and allow for additional flows into the area,” said Jehring. “It all percolates down through down to the 345 and the 161 and ultimately down into the lower voltage facilities.”
The discussion then shifted to routing and why developers could not simply construct the massive towers along the Interstate 90 corridor. Dairyland government relations representative Luke Fuller explained that regional grid operators evaluated the interstate but ruled it out due to aviation and military conflicts. Fuller noted that the highway runs too close to the La Crosse Regional Airport as well as Fort McCoy and Volk Field.
Randa challenged this explanation and asked why developers could not simply bury the line for those restricted sections and run the rest overhead along the interstate.
“When you lay out this power that you didn’t want to go down the freeway because there’s an airport and there’s a military base those are short little chunks of the route,” said Randa. “Why can’t you put it underground for those two little chunks?”
A project representative responded that burying a high voltage line for short distances is not feasible. He explained that the technology does not exist at the 765 kilovolt class and that the environmental destruction from continuous trenching would be far worse than overhead lines.
“The net environmental impact of a buried solution I think is dramatically more just based on what you have to do to the earth to get that infrastructure in the ground,” said Sean.
Randa pushed back on the engineering argument stating that avoiding a small airport is a poor excuse for permanently scarring an untouched natural landscape. He noted that the 200 foot steel lattice structures would be visible for miles in either direction from any local ridge.
“You are talking about a tiny little airport where you could go around it or go underground but instead you are going to go through one of the most beautiful areas in Wisconsin,” said Randa. “You are going to go through it with these massive towers.”
Health concerns regarding electromagnetic fields dominated the latter half of the meeting. Numerous residents asked Resident Karen Woodhouse cited independent studies linking extreme low frequency magnetic fields to severe health issues including childhood leukemia and memory loss. She also pointed out the physical dangers for farmers operating heavy machinery under the lines noting that individuals with a defibrillator or pacemaker in their chest could receive a very powerful and painful shock. Woodhouse directly asked the panel of developers if they would feel safe living under the massive lines with their families.
“I think everybody in this room is going to be living next to this line for our whole lives,” said Woodhouse. “Would you live under this electrical magnetic field with your family with these risks and feel perfectly safe doing that in your backyard? What if you drove a machinery back and forth under one of those transmission lines with a defibrillator in your chest?”
Both Maly, Dunham and all the representatives present stated they would feel comfortable living near the infrastructure.
“To be honest I do not live next to one right now but I will tell you every morning I walk along a high voltage transmission line,” said Dunham.
Following the public meetings project leaders acknowledged the public frustration and expressed a need to adjust how they communicate the project details to the community.
During a subsequent interview GridLiance senior director of transmission development Jessica Hewitt and Dairyland stakeholder communications representative Eric Jacobson reflected on the pushback they received. Jacobson noted that the biggest question from the community involved the fundamental need for the project and how the grid operates.
“It is certainly important to the residents of the community and they are ready to ask really important questions about it,” said Jacobson. “We have every right to ask questions about the project.”
Hewitt agreed that the utility companies need to do a better job explaining the interconnected nature of the regional grid. She stated the team plans to fine tune their messaging to combat the persistent narrative that the massive line will only bypass the region without providing any local benefit.
“We appreciate the input because that gives us the opportunity to better understand where the need is and where we need to modify our messaging to make it clear what the facts are,” said Hewitt. “We are looking to fine tune our messaging to make that more clear.”
Hewitt strongly refuted the claim that the line does not serve the local area. She explained that electricity from the 765 kilovolt line will eventually step down at regional substations and filter into the local distribution network much like a spider web.
“That is actually incorrect because the voltage is stepped down lower and lower and lower to the point where it is at the distribution voltage level and feeding homes,” said Hewitt. “It actually does connect into the local community.”
In addition to grid reliability Hewitt highlighted the economic advantages the project will bring to rural municipalities. She pointed to the influx of construction workers who will spend money at local businesses and the perpetual environmental impact fees that will be paid to local governments.
“There will be jobs during the peak in both states that will infuse additional economic benefit into the local communities via usage of your gas stations your hotels your restaurants,” said Hewitt. “That will also be a benefit to folks.”
The developers plan to file their formal application with state regulators in the fall of 2026.
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