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I visited a member utility Sept. 15 -- the first time since February. The year started well enough, with a productive swing through northwest Minnesota and then time with people in February, at MMUA meeting and training events. Then came March. And you know that story all too well. Who...

Municipal utilities have long sought to provide reliable service at a reasonable rate.   At one time it may have been enough.    It isn’t now.   Simple numbers add up to trouble in many places. About 20 percent of Minnesota’s municipal...

The MMUA office is moving. While certainly an inconvenience, it also presents an opportunity to go through drawers and files to see what should be kept and what ought to be thrown away. Rummaging through the office, it is apparent that, in many cases, what seemed crucially important at one...

A sense of place
A sense of place. ­ That is one thing which each of the 124 Minnesota cities operating a municipal electric utility has in common. There is something unique about each one. It’s not surprising. When your bedrock tenet is local control, it stands to reason that your city...

You might hope that as both are government—the Minnesota Division of Energy Resources (DER) and municipal electric utilities—that there would be comity—some appreciation for the role each plays in the provision of electric service in the state.   Unfortunately,...

After a 20-year Air Force career, Chris Grindland returned to Peterson. He bought his childhood home from his parents, and continued with the work of raising his family. With a population of 198, the city needs people to get involved, and Grindland was willing. He ran for the city council...

You can often look at an electric generating project and peg its age by what needs it was designed to meet and the political sensitivities (if any) at the time it was built. Today, for example, there are several proposed U.S.-Canada transmission projects currently gaining regulatory...

This month’s Resource newsletter carries an article on new mercury limits for wastewater discharges in the Lake Superior basin. The limits result from the Binational Program to Restore and Protect the Lake Superior basin, which was signed in 1991. The expense of meeting this...

I recently received two pieces of mail that gave me pause as a resident of an MMUA-member city. They also made me consider why it is increasingly difficult for different people to solve complex problems, and what I could possibly do about it. One letter, dated May 4, came from a Minnesota...

MMUA wouldn’t be much without its members. That point was driven home again Saturday, April 2, at the national Public Power Lineworkers Rodeo, held at Canterbury Park in Shakopee. Sure, Shakopee Public Utilities (SPU) and MMUA were hosts of this American Public Power Association...

MMUA and Shakopee Public Utilities salute the American lineworker . Can anybody tell me who the guy pictured here is? If you can, there is a major award (still to be determined) for you. You can watch lineworkers in action Saturday, April 2 at the APPA Public Power Lineworkers Rodeo....

Something curious about the reporting in the Star Tribune Sunday, March 20 on a large new wind ‘farm’ and, in a larger article, “Nuclear sticker shock” for potential upgrades at the Prairie Island nuclear facility. The wind development story mentioned the amount of...

In a phenomenon that reminds me of a modern youth sports ‘season,’ the political season is well upon us (did it ever really end?). Municipal utilities often seek to keep ‘politics’ out of the business--an ironic twist for utilities born of politics. The effort is...

Municipal utilities and businesses that support them have a long and often mutually-beneficial relationship. Back in the mists of time, engine and generator manufacturers actually promoted municipal utilities. The sales pitch was that the city would get lower rates, more reliable service,...

The more I learn and observe, the more I am convinced that issues come and go but human nature stays the same. This thought follows the MMUA Technical and Operations (T&O) Conference, held earlier this week in St. Cloud. While MMUA does its best to present a program that will be of...

Had a chance this week to visit the Granite Falls Municipal Utilities. Driving home, I had a few thoughts. One was thankfulness for work that allows me to visit utilities like this and with the people who make them go. If you ever get a chance to visit a municipal power plant, especially a...

It occurred to me Nov. 23 as I was visiting Brent Brown, that this was the third Windom Municipal Utility manager that I had sat with in this particular office. The list starts with Dennis Purrington. Purrington was succeeded by Marv Grunig. Upon Grunig’s retirement, the Windom Commission...

I had the opportunity to attend the Blandin Foundation’s Border to Border Broadband Conference, held Nov. 18-20 in “the cities.” A number of statements at the conference struck me. Bernadine Joselyn, Blandin’s Director of Public Policy & Engagement, said that...

One of the great things about working for MMUA is the opportunity to get around the state a little bit and visit the different utilities and the people that operate them. One of the destinations Nov. 3 was Spring Valley Public Utilities.  The beauty of the day was exceeded only by the...

MMUA held a CIP Summit at its Plymouth offices Wednesday, Nov. 4. ‘CIP’ stands for Conservation Improvement Program and the acronym is pronounced ‘sip.’  The CIP statute has been around since 1980, and has been amended numerous times over the years. MMUA is...

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