Lance Crandall is back. Assistant park manager four years ago, Crandall returned to Scenic State Park on April 18, this time as park manager.

It was not a hard decision.

It’s a wonderful place, he explained, and he is not alone in thinking so. The resource itself, the atmosphere and the pristine quality of the park bring vacationers back year after year, he said. In fact, he’s used to hearing campers suggest they’ve been coming to the park since before he was born.

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“We are doing very, very well,” said David Saggau, CEO of Great River Energy as he referred to the capacity factor of 99.6 percent achieved by GRE in 2006. That number indicates how much electricity is actually generated compared to how much could be generated and is better than the regional average.

Why is this important? Because, said Saggau, otherwise GRE would be forced into the market to buy higher priced energy.

GRE is the generation and transmission cooperative which supplies power to North Itasca Electric, and Saggau was a featured speaker at the North Itasca Electric annual meeting on June 9.

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Do the pennies from rounding up your electric bill matter? At the annual meeting, RoundUp Board Chair Linnette Davidson spoke on what these donations mean to local groups.

Greetings from your RoundUp Board.

Today and every day I live in a spirit of gratitude. I am grateful for the generosity of the people of this small community. Through your gifts, the board has been able this semester to award nearly $10,000 in grants for a variety of programs in our busy area.

Because of your generosity, youngsters will receive books to read, experience summer activities, learn to shoot arrows, and travel to Washington D.C. to learn more about how this great country works.

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A proposed new 230 kV transmission line connecting the Wilton Substation just west of Bemidji with the Boswell Substation in Cohasset was discussed at a public meeting in June. At right a visitor to the Cohasset meeting discusses the project with representatives from HDR Engineering and Minnesota Power. Although Minnesota Power, Ottertail Power and Minnkota Power are leads in this project, it falls under the umbrella of CAPX2020, an initiative to improve transmission capacity in Minnesota by a number of utilities including Great River Energy.

Three routes were displayed; the preferred, cheaper ($62 million) and shorter (68 mile) route runs along Highway 2. Two alternative routes identified include one which runs south of Leech Lake and another which runs north to Blackduck, joining the route of the current GRE 69 kV line through North Itasca Electric’s service territory. That line runs east from the Evensen substation in Alvwood to the Wirt substation and then to Highway 6 where it turns south to Deer River. The northern alternative was estimated to cost $99 million and require 116 miles of line. More information can be found at www.capx2020.com.