Easements in Pope County, Minnesota

The Big Stone South to Alexandria line has a final route through the county

The Big Stone South to Alexandria (BSSA) project is a proposed 345 kilovolt electric transmission line, developed jointly by Otter Tail Power Company, the Western Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, and Missouri River Energy Services. The full line runs roughly 95 to 105 miles, with 90 to 100 of those miles in Minnesota and the remainder in South Dakota. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission -- the same state body that controls siting for utility-scale wind projects elsewhere on this site -- issued an order establishing a final route for the project, and that route runs through portions of western and northern Pope County specifically, per the county's own published notice. This is a state-permitted project, not a county land-use decision, and Pope County's Land Use Controls Ordinance (LUCO) and shoreland rules, covered on the hub, do not govern whether or where the line gets built -- only the PUC's route-permit process does.

The easement: a permanent 150-foot right-of-way, negotiated parcel by parcel

Once the PUC's route permit is final, the project's applicants acquire the necessary land rights not by eminent domain as a first step, but by negotiating an easement agreement directly with each affected landowner -- an offer based on fair market value, per the project's own landowner-resources materials. The physical right-of-way required is a new 150-foot-wide corridor for construction and ongoing operation of the transmission line and its associated facilities. Once agreed, the easement is recorded against the specific parcel's title in Pope County, meaning it becomes a permanent, running encumbrance that any future buyer of that parcel inherits along with the land -- not a temporary construction disruption that goes away once the poles are up.

Construction on the BSSA project is currently expected to begin in 2028 and take two to four years to complete. That multi-year runway matters for a buyer: a Pope County parcel along the final route may already have a recorded easement agreement on it well before any visible construction activity, or a landowner may currently be mid-negotiation with the project's land agents. Either way, the presence or absence of a BSSA easement is not something a buyer can infer from the current physical condition of the land.

What this means for your purchase

For any parcel in western or northern Pope County, check three things before assuming the BSSA project is irrelevant to a purchase: whether the parcel falls along the PUC's finalized route (the project's own maps and Pope County's website are the places to start); whether an easement agreement has already been signed and recorded against that specific parcel's title, which the Pope County Recorder's office can confirm; and, if no agreement exists yet, whether the project's land agents have already made contact or an offer, since a seller mid-negotiation may have information not yet reflected in the public record. A recorded 150-foot transmission easement running across a parcel can meaningfully affect where a future building site, driveway, or agricultural operation can go, even though the payment for it is a one-time transaction rather than an ongoing cost.

• Confirm whether a specific parcel falls along the BSSA project's finalized PUC route using the project's own maps or by contacting Pope County directly.
• Check with the Pope County Recorder for any already-recorded BSSA easement agreement on a specific parcel’s title before closing.
• If no easement is yet recorded but the parcel sits along the route, ask the seller directly whether the project's land agents have made contact or an offer -- that negotiation history may not show up in title records yet.
• Remember that Pope County's LUCO zoning and shoreland rules, covered on the hub, do not control this project -- route and permitting decisions run through the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, not county government.