Minnesota’s “Buy the Farm” law is being tested with a court case between CapX2020 and Cedar Summit Farm near New Prague. As it currently stands, the law requires utilities building high-voltage power lines to buy farms in the way if the landowners demand it.
Dave and Florence Minar, owner of Cedar Summit, say they can’t operate their organic dairy under a 345,000-volt power line and so they’re asking that CapX2020 purchase the farm so they can relocate, according to an Associated Press article by Steve Karnowski.
"Our whole business is at stake," Dave Minar told the AP. "We don't want to continue dairy farming under high-voltage power lines. They're saying we won't have a problem, but I don't believe them.”
The case is one of dozens of land disputes with similar situations. The law states that landowners must meet certain criteria for a buyout, and Minars’ attorney, Rod Krass, said they meet the requirements but the utilities keep contesting, saying the family isn’t eligible “because their operation counts as commercial land,” the article reads, “and that only one transmission tower would be built on their land.”
The matter will be hashed out in court.
"We didn't ask for this power line,” Minar told the AP. “It's taken a chunk out of our lives for the last four or five years.” PD
—Summarized by PD staff from cited source
