A group of southern Alberta landowners has lost its fight to block a proposed power line that would run from Lethbridge into Montana. The Alberta Court of Appeal has ruled that the province's energy regulator was right when it said it didn't have the power to re-examine the location of the line's corridor, which had already been approved by the National Energy Board.

Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. was granted a permit from the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board on Tuesday to construct the Canadian stretch of a 215-mile electrical transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge. The line is expected to spur wind farm construction in northcentral Montana. The EUB permit was the final OK needed for the Alberta portion, which makes up about 40 percent of the entire project, said Bob Curran, an EUB spokesman. Canada's National Energy Board previously approved the plan. "It means they can construct and operate the line now," Curran said.

The Alberta Utilities Commission's approval Tuesday of the proposed Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. line was the final Canadian permit needed for the 240-kV AC line, which would interconnect electricity markets and carry 300 MW north and south. The commission said the proposed line satisfied its conditions, including a process for negotiating disputes with landowners. ...Wind farm developers in Alberta and Montana have fully subscribed the line for marketing power both north and south.

Following complaints from farmers, the U.S. Department of Energy is now planning its toughest environmental review of a proposed $120 million power transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge, Alberta.... Wind farm developers have said the line is critical to construction of their projects. To date, three companies have signed up to use capacity on the line to ship power from wind farms they're planning between Great Falls and the Canadian border.

Construction of a $140 million transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge, Alberta, has been delayed at least five months because of appeals in the United States and Canada ...The anticipated start of construction, which was slated for March, is now sometime this fall.

The open country north of Great Falls stretching to the Canadian border - long known for its wheat - may be about to see an explosion of a new crop. Harvested from towers twice as tall as the old Milwaukee Depot, with blades that reach nearly 400 feet into the sky, that crop is wind. The growth hinges on regulatory approval and construction of the Montana Alberta Tie, a 203-mile-long transmission line that would tie into the U.S. power grid at Great Falls and the Canadian grid in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Alberta farmers who hope to halt construction of a major power transmission line proposed between Great Falls and Lethbridge were granted permission Thursday to appeal the $150 million project to the Alberta Court of Appeals. "The only way we're ever going to stop this line is to win an appeal and get the decision overturned," said Scott Stenbeck, an attorney representing 16 farmers who live in the Lethbridge and Warner areas. Marc Clark, president of the line's developer, Montana Alberta Tie Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Toronto-based Tonbridge Power Inc., said the ruling may delay the project, but it won't stop the proposed line.

A single wind farm located in a scenic setting outside this rural Canadian town was featured on a postage stamp three years ago. Today, the cumulative stamp of hundreds of turbines on the views of wide-open farmland and majestic mountains here is an increasingly sticky issue. "How many is too many?" asked Rod Zielinski, a municipal district councilman in Pincher Creek, 250 miles north of Great Falls. Last year, the district unsuccessfully tried to create a wind development-free zone in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Now it's proposing changes to its bylaws to address "cumulative effect." ...Some residents value tax revenue and jobs more than vistas, and vice versa, Zielinski said. Weighing these equally important but sometimes competing values is the contentious issue in regulating the siting of wind plants, he said. "Be prepared for these things [turbines] to be there forever, like the bank downtown," he said.

A proposed cross-border power transmission line connecting electric systems in Alberta and Montana has cleared a major regulatory hurdle in Canada. The National Energy Board, Canada's equivalent of the U.S. Department of Energy, on Wednesday issued a permit authorizing construction and operation of the line in Alberta.

A Canadian transmission company and an Irish wind developer said Friday they are teaming up to pursue a central Montana power project that could result in at least $1 billion worth of new wind energy in the Great Falls area. If the project succeeds, it would give Montana's burgeoning wind energy industry room to grow - an expansion that to date has been limited by a lack of lines to move power out of the state.

Some grain growers in northcentral Montana and Alberta, used to government bureaucracy and bad weather eroding their bottom line, are determined to get a fair shake from another adversary - big business - in the form of a Canadian company proposing to build a private or "merchant" transmission line across their cropland. The federal and state/provincial governments on both sides of the border are set to approve or deny the permits for Montana Alberta Tie Ltd.'s three-year-old proposal by summer's end for the American portion and in October for the Canadian portion.

A proposed power line that would provide transmission capacity to four wind-generation projects between Lethbridge, Alta., and Great Falls fails to consider the long-term impacts on farmers

The Montana Alberta Tie-Line has been given conditional approval for the 230-kilovolt power line that will import and export electricity between Lethbridge, Alta., and Great Falls, Mont. The Alberta Energy and Utility Board said in a news release late Thursday afternoon that the Montana company must hold discussions with affected landowners along the approved route "to address the mitigation of specific impacts" on them. The board also ordered that Montana-Alberta Tie-Line must report back to them about this process by April 30. The board says it will not issue a permit for the project "until it is satisfied that MATL has satisfied this requirement." The $129 million project was approved by the National Energy Board last April and the Alberta board was the last step.

In the works for three years, a high-voltage transmission line connecting Montana's electric grid to Alberta's through eastern Teton County is on the last leg of a footrace slowed by intense scrutiny from landowners in the proposed right of way and from the regulatory agencies required to vet the project. The final environmental impact statement for the Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. 230-kilovolt power line was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 3. ... The power line would make possible wind energy development totaling 600 megawatts, 300 mw in each direction, from Great Falls to Lethbridge, Alta.

A Canadian company that proposes to construct a power line from Alberta to Great Falls through eastern Teton and Pondera counties is putting the cart before the horse, say farmers along the right of way. Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. of Calgary, Alta., sent letters on Sept. 21 to property owners along the proposed route stating that its agent, SNC Consulting, has the right under the state’s eminent-domain law to enter their lands to survey for a 230-kilovolt power line. Helena attorney Harley Harris signed the letters. According to state law, the right of eminent domain may be exercised for electrical energy lines, but it is silent on whether a private company that would benefit four wind farms has the same rights as a public utility.

Wind is free, the fuel source is not imported, it does not use water, has no air emission or solid waste disposal issues and its generation is not affected by increased natural gas prices, but it has two weaknesses. It is uncontrollable and uncertain as an energy source. That variability affects its integration into the region's electrical grid. The power in the wind is proportional to the cube of its speed and doubling the wind speed increases the available power by eight times. In addition, calm days mean zero voltage.

A Canadian company is seeking wind power developers to move electricity along a pair of $3 billion transmission lines in Montana and Wyoming -- potentially spurring a major increase in renewable power exported from the Rockies to the Southwest. The two lines would move 3,000 megawatts of power from each state. That's more than three times as much wind power as Wyoming currently produces and eight times what Montana has.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Developers of a proposed electric transmission line between Lethbridge, Alta., and Great Falls, Mont., said wind developers have bought one-half of the line's capacity and part of the route has been changed to satisfy federal regulators in Canada.

Officials from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality had allotted three hours to hear public comment on the proposed Montana Alberta Tie, Ltd. (MATL) transmission line project. Although approximately 60 people turned out for the hearing, which was held in Cut Bank on Wednesday, March 28, only about a dozen of those offered testimony on the project-the majority of which was very supportive. As proposed, the 130-mile transmission line would extend from the Montana-Alberta border northeast of Cut Bank to an existing substation just north of Rainbow Dam near Great Falls. DEQ has tentatively selected a preferred route, which contains "small revisions" in five areas to reduce impact on property owners. The proposed action by the DEQ also requires MATL to use single pole structures along 24 miles of the line.

The U.S. Department of Energy plans its toughest environmental review of the proposed power transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge, Alta., after farmers complained about the proposed type and routing of the power poles.