MINNESOTA POWER RECEIVES NATIONAL AWARD
FOR BOULDER LAKE PROJECT

WASHINGTON, DC (April 27, 1999) - A decade's worth of environmental vision in Northern Minnesota wildland habitat has earned a Minnesota electric utility company distinction as the nation's number one electric utility land manager for 1999. Minnesota Power, headquartered in Duluth, Minnesota is the recipient of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) 1998 National Land Management Award. EEI is the association of shareholder-owned electric utilities, international affiliates and associate members, whose domestic members produce about three-quarters of the nations' electricity.

EEI's National Land Management Award program annually honors one or more electric companies with the most outstanding record of caring for the lands they manage. The awards came at an annual conference of utility land managers in Williamsburg, Virginia.

"Minnesota Power has set a standard of environmental care and vision that companies everywhere can emulate," said Thomas Kuhn, president of Edision Electric Institute. "Their work to preserve habitats and create educational opportunities proves again that electric companies do much more than keep the lights on. They eagerly invest in ensuring that generations hence will inherit a world that is as clean as it is bright."

Minnesota Power won its award for its program to protect the Boulder Lake Management Area (BLMA) through a cooperative arrangement with it's partners, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the St. Louis County Land Department . The BLMA is an 8,250 acre natural area conceived of by the company in 1988 and formally established in 1991. Boulder Lake Reservoir contains 27 miles of Minnesota Power shoreline that will remain 98 percent undeveloped to protect its wilderness-like qualities. The BLMA is home to a resident population of timber wolves.

Minnesota Power leads the public recreation opportunities that provide the public with a window to natural resource management work of the three partners.

Minnesota Power, along with the other partners, worked to create a cooperative environmental center in partnership with the University of Minnesota, Duluth. The center is, for northeastern Minnesota, a unique environmental education facility geared to produce on-site educational experiences for the public and school groups.

The company is also the primary provider of public recreation facilities at the BLMA, managing, among other facilities, hiking and groomed cross-country ski trails that feature trailside interpretive information stops.