you
Welcome to our morning show for a Tuesday here on WRC radio the 7th of July.
I am Phil Knee.
It's great to have in the studio once again Rob Danielson.
He was in a little bit earlier this year
talking about the no seven 65 kilovolt lines and the group and some landowners concerns.
And there is a potential meeting coming up here, not potential.
It will happen coming up on Thursday, July 16th.
So we're here to talk about that a little bit, but good morning again, Rob.
Good morning, Phil.
So has a lot changed since the last time you were in
the studio?
Well, the three counties have adopted information request resolutions unanimously.
The member owners of the original electric cooperative also adopted an information request resolution.
And dozens of landowners have been submitting questions and letters to the developer asking for fundamental information about this proposal.
And they are just basically being ignored.
The developer for the project is called Mid-Continent Grid Solutions.
They are a limited liability corporation, an unregulated utility.
They've never done anything in Wisconsin before.
They're unfamiliar with our standards here in the state.
And they're limited liability corporation for a reason because there are major liabilities.
And we're hoping that people, the landowners, directly impacted landowners who have been mailed invitations to this meeting on the 13th will show up to learn about some of the very significant concerns with the transmission line of this scale that's never
One has never been built of this scale in Wisconsin before.
We've never seen anything remotely like it.
We're talking about replacing 70 foot high transmission wooden pole existing transmission lines with towers that are 200 feet high, expanding the easement from 70 feet to 250 feet.
incredible amount of current with noise and light pollution and things like we have never seen in Wisconsin before.
So yeah, the fact that the developer is not responding, we know from state law that they are first required to evaluate siting on existing transmission lines in Wisconsin.
So we know that they know where they're going to be looking to site this project, but
from the landowners and the counties unanimously put in a request to a corp supposedly responsible corporate entity and they don't receive any of the substantive information.
I have recently received a correspondence that Representative Tony Kurtz received after inquiring through using his abilities to leverage information.
And we found, again, a lot of platitudes, a lot of generalities.
This proposal could be submitted to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin with final siting designations without any input from landowners, from, you know, we have houses and barns and businesses that are locating virtually under the existing transmission line.
And that's simply not permitted.
expand that easement to 250 feet, we're talking about hundreds of landowners.
And it's not just here in Richland County, it would go from Bell Center in Crawford County through Richland County, Salk County,
Columbia County and then turn southward and go all the way to Beloit.
So we're talking about hundreds of landowners, farmers, everybody who are in this perilous hazardous situation who are not even being acknowledged when they personally write letters and request information.
They get these vague responses back.
They say, oh, what are we doing meetings?
Like this correspondence from Tony is a perfect example.
I'll read a couple of quotes here just so I gave you a copy of that so you can see yourself.
But completely inconsistent with their behavior that I described, the developer in this little brochure or draft brochure says that they are committed to keeping landowners and local communities informed and engaged through the project lifecycle.
Clearly, they haven't begun that commitment nor have they said when they will begin that commitment.
They simply said they might have some open houses as soon as this fall.
anyone who's ever been to open houses know that number one there's no presentation made there's no accountable information made is simply a public relations personnel around the room sitting in front of easels with topics there and you can talk to them you can but these are people who are not qualified to answer questions or make adjustments in transmission line you need dozens of transmission line sighting engineers
at open houses all the way from western Wisconsin to southern border of Wisconsin to account for this.
And so the silence is haunting at this point.
They said that, for example, a lot of the landowners have been asking for deserved detailed maps.
You know, so you can zoom in on them on your computer and you can see, oh, good, we go here, we go here.
Where's the existing transmission line in your estimation?
Where would the new transmission line be in your estimation?
I need to be able to have input about this.
In fact, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin expects the developer to resolve these questions, these hazards before the application goes into the PSC.
But they won't even tell us when they want to submit the application to the PSC.
So these interactive maps, what is that?
An interactive online map.
They even say that the open houses would, in some cases, be virtual.
So you have a virtual interaction with a non-qualified person.
What kind of input is that?
They say that they would have, this is the most concerning thing is that they've been getting letters and they clearly have adopted some of the language and requests of the letters in there because they have this phrase in here, that there will be opportunities to participate in the citing process.
When, how, in person, we're not talking about, you know, like, you know,
chatting about it.
We're talking about sitting down with an engineer and making decisions and getting adjustments before that application goes in.
If I'm a landowner who's looking at this alteration in my property that I've, in your case, a century property that's in your family, I wake up every morning and this haunts me.
And when this awareness, the silence,
makes me even more nervous.
So that's the situation that we're in, Phil.
When you first talked about, when I first read about it, I was thinking, well, this is a long ways away from my backyard.
Not that that makes it right, but we're not sure exactly where it's going.
I mean, it could directly come right through this area, couldn't
it?
Well, if you look at the maps that have been sent to the landowners and the ones that I gave you, state law tells us very explicitly,
that the number one priority sighting for new transmission lines in the state of Wisconsin are the corridors of existing transmission lines.
That's section 11, that's section 1.12, section 6.
It's been Wisconsin law since 1990s.
So there's no mystery about that.
The developer, they happen to be out of state, they happen to be unregulated, they happen to have never done this, put in this state before, but state law specifies that they must do every possible way follow existing transmission lines.
And that doesn't mean like, for example, this one weaves its way literally through the heart of Richland Center because the existing 69KV transmission line has been there for 75 years.
Some of the families here helped install that transmission line probably, and it's part of their lives.
It's small.
It's wooden poles.
It goes right over the trailer park.
It goes literally right through the heart of Highway 14.
It's like...
Are there going to be adjustments for that?
Well, let's say there are adjustments.
But what about all the property owners in one direction or another that have never had a transmission line or any imposition like this in their lives that all of a sudden inherit this proposal out of the clear.
Those people should be notified as well.
Everybody should be notified, not just these directly impacted landowners.
So yeah, I'm sorry to have to tell you when you wake up tomorrow morning, this fact that you have an existing transmission line on your property is a reality.
And until we start getting solid information from the developer, well in advance of what they plan to submit it to the PSC of
I mean, it's just going to be a nervous situation.
Our lawmakers are just starting to act, even though they've been getting phone calls that were lucky to representative Kurtz reached out.
But Senator Faff and Senator Johnson have proposed an underground transmission line bill for Wisconsin to change the priority for these mega transmission.
I cannot under describe the scale of these transmission lines.
They should be buried.
underground is better than underground and they should be buried high voltage dc and buried underground along existing corridors highways railroads there's one that's being built from mason city uh iowa northern iowa excuse me yeah iowa all the way into northern illinois 340 miles it's not controversial law because it's buried next to the existing rail line that goes you know all the way between those points
That bill is, you know, on the table that could be considered.
We should have a law, in my opinion, that says, look, you cannot propose a transmission line in Wisconsin until you have notified and documented that you have contacted and had discussions with all of these landowners.
180 days before.
So you have to send in that thing that says, we have notified all of these landowners at minimum 180 days before, but now we have none, no laws to do that in Wisconsin.
So we're really at the mercy of these
private developers.
I'm wondering about cost in comparison.
Does it cost more to bury them than put up the polls?
Well, there's never been a cost analysis done.
The utilities that propose this, the regional utilities, make money by putting steel on the ground and they want to put in match steel.
The brochure also says that.
that quote unquote electricity use in the United States is growing rapidly that's simply untrue in Wisconsin our electricity use in 2024 was 3% less than it was in 2004 the efficiency improvements the
you know, frugal nature of Wisconsinites, we don't, we have not.
And this, this expansion transmission line system is joining this regional utility market and stuff.
It was never intended to be used as an export thing where we take power from Wisconsin and export that to the East Coast.
That was never even considered or discussed when we joined this regional electricity market.
So the utilities are
like foxes running the chicken coop.
They make their money by, you know, building, putting steel on the ground.
They don't make money by selling power.
That's all price regulated.
Even though the prices have gone way up when we were told they would go down.
Yeah.
So basically it's a deregulated age that we live in and we have major, the three main investors behind these projects are
people like BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, these are the largest asset owners in the world.
They have trillions and trillions of dollars just waiting to find a place.
So they can build a transmission line and get guaranteed 10% per year, well, assured 10% per year return on that project.
How would you like to make an improvement on your dairy farm and no matter what happens, get a guaranteed return of 10% on that per year?
So this is like, it's just a, it's just an out of control situation.
And the people, the communities, the people in this case who buy the, you know, the power, they're being subjected to this.
Laws a
fair environment my opinion so the power is just basically going through the state of Wisconsin We're not benefiting it as as users or consumers.
Well, they would actually they would have two substations that are created one at Portage and one at Sugar Creek, which is elk elk horn, okay, and but the
irony is is that they would actually more be more likely to use those to export power out of the state.
So we'd actually use it as an opportunity to like build more power plants in Wisconsin, even though we don't have the demand for the power.
because building, whether it's steel in the ground for a solar power plant, a natural gas power plant, a wind power plant, a nuclear power plant, that's all guaranteed return for those utilities.
So they're looking for all kinds of ways to put that steel in the ground, even though our energy use and our demand on transmission is absolutely flat.
This idea that data centers are going
Well, there may be some input, but it's an increase in use for that.
But that's not really been established.
It hasn't shown up in any records.
And frankly, there's quite a bit of resistance to the data centers for very clear reasons.
So it's not like one of those situations where public relations speak and billions of dollars being poured into our
you know, modern electronic communications should be dictating, you know, our understandings.
It's like, yeah, we know that they have a motive to, you know, encourage us to want them to put steel on the ground, but that's not the way it works in our society.
Our society is, no, you have to get a permit.
You have to demonstrate need.
And first and foremost, you need to inform the potentially impacted individuals.
You wouldn't want it running over the top of your house.
Um, there's a lot of noise involved,
right?
Yeah, there is.
There's a significant, you can't run it over your house.
And so anybody who's within the existing area, like the normal width now is like 70 feet.
This would go from about 70 feet to 125 feet in both directions.
So all through the city of Richland center, they're like,
dozens of large concerns, businesses, hotels, everything, even the city hall, that would all be basically could not exist under that transmission line.
So that's why we know they're probably going to want to move it, but then that means they also have to notify a whole bunch of other people who don't have an existing transmission line.
The state of Wisconsin explicitly says that you can't have a transmission line, can't build a new house, or have an existing dwelling under in the easement area of the transmission line.
Noise-wise, yeah, the developers says we're going to use these new fancy towers that will keep the quote noise of under 50 decibels now without getting too
complicated or technical or whatever, I know quite a bit about sound.
That sound pressure level of 50 decibels is the loudest permitted noise from a power plant, any kind of power plant in Wisconsin.
It's basically equivalent to the sound of a moderate rainstorm.
This would be going on 24-7, 365, the sound of an electric razor, you know what it's like when you raise a large office space.
or a busy restaurant.
Now, if you have a farm or you have a retirement home or you have your family gathering area that's been located next to these little modest wooden poles for decades, you go out on the porch in the evening, you go to vacation there, you wake up in the morning and take a big breath of fresh air because you can hear the world, right?
This would be.
three times louder than the loudest natural sound.
So goodbye birds, goodbye, you know, all of the stuff.
And furthermore, the light, there's a call Corona discharge.
This is very old high voltage technology.
It has, it creates, it ionizes the air around it and zaps and sizzles and buzzes.
Plus it emits ultraviolet light, which a lot of animals
cattle and see what are some of them here.
All birds, raptors, bees, cattle, pigs, sheep, mice, dogs and cats, deer, squirrels, prairie dogs and trout.
They all see this glowing light and studies have shown that they avoid it.
So you know what animals do?
Animals don't hang around stuff that they're uncomfortable with.
So if that emanating light extended to several kilometers as the studies suggested on both sides, not only would it just scare away these precious parts of our lives, but it would divide the habitat right down the middle.
It would make like the impact of a interstate highway look like small potatoes.
So yeah, I mean, it has
perceptual experiences.
Some people are vulnerable to electromagnetic energy and there's studies showing that.
Those big transmission lines that run along the freeways that you see.
this is carry six times the amount of power roughly 24 times the amount of power that's in that existing transmission line and you've probably been on your land before and walked across in this human conditions you didn't hear that that's like maybe one eighth
of the amount of noise that these would crank out.
So you're talking about, you know, properties that have been built, investments that have been made, and yet no word from the developer.
So I was nervous all the way over here and I always am because I live and feel the anxieties of people that are, you know, facing this dilemma.
in silence at the same time.
Yeah.
Sometimes the worst is the unknown, right?
Yeah.
I mean, and where's the public service commission?
Right.
You know, I mean, are they being forced mostly as our state lawmakers?
Where are our state lawmakers?
They should be getting these.
They've got dozens of letters.
They should be saying, wait a minute, we need to go back into session and pass a law that will not enable this out of state unregulated limited liability corporation.
funded by the largest asset managers in the world to dictate, you know, like what information is going to be presented to our communities in our county.
How can you ignore if you got a resolution unanimously adopted by the Richland County Board to tell you anything?
Would you just like tell them to go take a hike and send back a little letter saying, thank you for your information.
We'll get back to you when we have the.
Interesting.
Rob Danielson, our guest on WRCO, potentially impacted landowner.
And we are talking about the volt, the 765 kilovolt lines that could be coming through the area in the coming, I guess, year to be
proposed in maybe as early as a year from this fall.
You speak from experience because you have talked to people in different parts of the country affected by this, right?
Right.
I know a number of people who have been involved in examining this whole concept of expansion transmission lines for really since 1999.
And this is a known controversial thing.
The utilities are able to sort of spend a lot on PR and say that it's all about green energy and all of this stuff and that we need them for data centers and stuff.
And so these people have been tracking this particular developer
on the east coast for a number of years.
They also have projects in Texas.
And I asked the main person who's tracked maybe 20 of these projects over the last year, what the reputation of this particular developer is, TransSource.
And she said, not good.
She said, they're not.
their public outreach is extraordinary.
I think the word she used was extraordinarily frustrating for everyone that just was not forthcoming.
And I've seen posters from some of the protests and they're basically, you know, complaining about, you know, the property being stolen from them because of there's no interaction, no adjustments and things like that.
Anybody listening that would like to ask a question to Rob, you'll be taken off the air and be submitted to the program.
But if you're hearing this and have some concerns and maybe have a question, feel free to call us at 608-647-4155 and Henry will answer that and get us the question.
You know, in terms of this meeting coming up, I know you're going to be able to offer a lot of information next Thursday, the 16th, or just hoping a lot of people show up, Rob.
So yes, I'm, I'm working with a group of potentially impacted landowners in Richland County specifically who have put on two of these to be the second one.
The first one we did was in Boaz.
Um, and that did towns that were west of where we sit.
Um, and when very good turnout, a lot of discussion, um, we don't have, uh, I'm not paid for any of this.
I just do this, um, a retired university professor.
I can read PDFs.
I can read the analysis.
I can, you know, look at the legal writing and stuff.
And, uh, so I'm, you know, trying to do what I can to, to make sure that good decisions are being made.
Um,
But basically our meeting will be, it's a presentation, a video presentation, but we will stop and discuss any questions that, I mean a, excuse me, slideshow.
We'll stop and do any discussion, questions that people have, and there are always a lot of questions.
We will
focus on the people who are most affected, which would be the directly impacted.
So we'll take those questions and entertain those.
But it's a larger facility.
The Phoenix Center is a larger facility.
So there will be some extra seating in there and elected officials and people from the public.
And it doesn't just have to be existing transmission lines because they might decide to, as you kind of hinted before, go off course.
And this would be people who would be
completely blindsided by it.
So until our supervisors, our county supervisors, our city elected officials, our state officials and stuff all get up to speed and start putting pressure on the developers to do justice.
In my opinion, we're in a pickle.
There are some things that actions that people listeners can take.
you obviously come to the meeting on July 16th, but you can also email the developer.
They provided an email address here to representative Kurtz and asked to be number one placed on their mailing list to receive all information.
So if you're basically any person between, you know, Bell Center or call it Gays Mills, Wisconsin and Beloit, Wisconsin, you are
you know, you need to get on this made in this because number one, we want to demonstrate to the developer that there is concern and number two, you're not going to get at this point, not going to get any information unless you do that.
And while you're in this email and the email address is, um, it's connect C O N N E C T at M G S.
Wisconsin spelled out completely M G S Wisconsin.com.
And you can ask them a very pertinent and relevant question and ask one question.
Maybe you'll get an answer.
Just don't give him any wiggle room and say, when will you submit your application to the PSC?
If they follow Dairylands and next era's, uh,
pattern that they set up, which is the segment of the 765 between the state line and Bell Center, they could submit their application as soon as a year after they start their public in from these open houses and things that we discussed.
So that is an extreme concern.
If they will not say, for example, we will submit their application.
That is an evasiveness and an acceptable, unacceptable level that state lawmakers should not, in my opinion, allow in any circumstances.
So you just cannot leave communities and farms and families in limbo.
Right.
Is there a history of being able to stop this forward progress?
Yes,
there is
actually.
There has been 17 of these transmission lines that have been stopped in the United States.
And one of the leading reasons is that I'm quoting is intense landowner opposition So we discussed this earlier, you know, I think back like when what's an example of like intense landowner opposition I think back of like to the milk rebellion in 1930, right?
I mean that made national news that changed the market that
woke people up and realized that economic justice was really important and we cannot have our society operated and run by moguls.
We needed to have, you know, economic justice.
In my opinion, if I'm a milk producer and I'm looking at maybe having some losing a few hundred gallons or maybe a thousand gallons of milk, that's nothing compared to having the value of my farm, my dairy operation.
drop precipitously because the studies have indicated that's done by reputable people here in Wisconsin who forensic appraisers of before and after property sales have demonstrated that just open farmland drops 13% but things with dwellings on them can drop upwards of 39 or 45%.
We're not just talking about, you know, some milk production laws for symbolic purposes.
We're talking about a hit of the economic scale that people cannot, we never had to look at before.
And that's because these are, these are not your little, you know, transmission lines that we're used to seeing, or even the big ones that run down the free interstates.
These are bigger than the biggest ones.
These are bigger than the biggest, right?
And going through the heart of the driftless.
following the existing transmission lines that have woven, you see them wade their way in and out of the valleys and these little 70 foot wide corridors that are gashes, right?
But the animals and the people, we've all become, you know, we're acclimated to those, the habitats are balanced in a certain way.
This would be transformative.
Let's say you have a dwelling, like right underneath or, you know, very close to the proximity.
Do they pay for that to be
Leveled and and you know maybe relocate somebody or
that's something that would have to be negotiated.
Uh-huh.
The I know that the state will not allow a trend any new building or any opera any farming operation equipment to be located under one of these existing transmit that's within that 250 foot wide easement.
When that question was asked at one of the public information meetings where we had lawyers and assessors there, they said, oh my god, you've opened up a bailiwag, you know, that negotiation process is.
There's no generalities you can make about it, but one thing for sure is you're going to have to hire a lawyer and you're going to have to make some, you know, of course they're lawyers, so they're a little bit prejudiced to say that, but that's also been my experience observing for transmission line proceedings before the commission.
A
couple of questions submitted to the program.
Thank you very much.
Can I continue farming under the transmission line?
That's a great
question to ask, isn't it?
Yeah.
I mean, I've heard complaints about even the lower voltage transmission lines really messing up the satellite, what do you call it, navigation equipment.
I know that a farmer that I knew personally, or no personally, up in the Mauslin area parked his combine underneath the 345, which is one sixth the capacity of these.
And he got up in the morning and jumped up on the ladder and it just threw him off from the static charge.
Really?
That was under it.
I think technically there's like the corn and soybeans or whatever will grow under high voltage, you know, conditions.
But that's, you know, kind of like, in my opinion, not the only factor involved.
Sort of related to about who, who repairs drainage tile, what could be damaged during that construction?
Great question.
Put it in writing, send it to the email address and a copy of it too.
I shouldn't say this, but I think imperative is sending copies of all this stuff to our state lawmakers to wake them up because they're the ones who can make sure that the developers answer these questions.
We have dozens of landowners who have sent in very
reasonable questions for them.
All we want is the detailed maps, for example, where would this be so that I can see it so I can provide input.
So like you said, adjustments can be made.
You heard it.
We might have online maps.
We might.
We may not.
You know, we may have virtual open houses.
We won't be giving any presentations.
We won't have siting engineers.
And this is, this is not just richon county or sock county or portage county.
This is like seven counties across the entire state of Wisconsin.
So you got to get in line.
If you want answers, unless they commit themselves like they say to serving the landowners like right now and upfront and with all kinds of like
solid information, how would you know you're even going to get into, you know, this title of tiling question?
It's like, um,
so if you, let's say you, you don't live anywhere near a line, why, why should you still be concerned?
I mean,
it will
pay for it.
The expansion transmission line proposal, which is,
basically motivated by the fact that utilities don't make money by selling power.
They make only, only money they make is by putting steel in the ground and getting that guaranteed return.
They're, they're not really, they're not really mo, they're not really motivated to, oh, let's put it this way.
Most people think, why would they ever build something if they don't need it?
That's not the way it works now.
deregulated corporations make make investments to make money they don't they can spend billions on public relations they can make everyone think oh there's going to deliver renewable energy from here or that we have demand for the power in wisconsin they just basically bombard us with all of this like justification and stuff there there is no real need for it so
The net effect, though, of the actual steel in the ground investment would affect each of us as electric customers, according to my estimates based on their calculations from the regional utilities.
It's about $12.50 per month that would be added to your electric bill to pay for not just the transmission line here in Wisconsin, but also in other states.
So we would actually pay for this expansion thing for transmission lines imposed on other communities
communities in other states in the Midwest.
Can you imagine a landowner that wants it?
No, because they only, unless they have an extraordinarily good lawyer and they start earlier and they start accumulating a paperwork demonstrating that the developer's not responding to them, they're only going to get roughly the
this return on the fair cost of the land for the added easement.
So if you went from 70 feet easement to 125 feet on both sides, you can do the math and calculate it out per, it's not that much money.
And it's a one-time payment.
The counties in the towns get some money, but they can't spend, they cannot spend that on, you know,
helping the landowners and helping the communities recover from that.
They cannot give any of that money to the affected parties.
I am an electric customer, of course.
And I have, you know, solar and stuff like that.
I don't, my electric bill is extraordinarily reasonable because I'm selling power to, I'm actually, I'm not getting paid very much or, but I'm giving the utilities, reselling it to my neighbors at a good rate of return.
And in Wisconsin, the number one way to reduce CO2.
The number one energy solution has been on records for 30 years now is to not.
spend more money on expanding the capital infrastructure, our demand is flat, right?
It's on helping people make those improvements in their homes and their farms and their businesses that every one of those dollars, which now in Wisconsin, we spend about a dollar and 15 or 30 cents per month for that energy efficiency pool, right?
So if we were to triple or double that energy efficiency pool,
we would save $7 a month over these expansion transmission lines.
That's the other thing, is not only are they not needed, but they're very expensive and there are better ways to spend money if we're going to do so.
Another question submitted to the program, Rob, will this help reassure for people in the area that we will have consistent and reliable electricity in the
future?
Well, first of all, you have consistent and reliable energy right now.
Wisconsin is rated as one of the most reliable transmission systems in the United States, along with other Midwest states.
We do have power outages.
We had power outages in Racine.
Last about 30,000 we energies went out because there were straight line winds at 114 miles per hour that blew down hundreds, if you accept the words of we energies, hundreds of trees into the transmission line system.
systems.
We, yeah, sure.
Vegetation is like the number one reliability issue.
This, as you pointed out earlier, this doesn't even connect to our transmission system.
In fact, one of the reasons the towers are so big is because they carry the existing transmission line along with it, which is one of the reasons they're so much bigger.
So again, we wouldn't as consumers be using the
Well, Electron Elect just speaking scientifically and absolutely legally correct Trent electrons don't go
to like where, you know, utilities say they should go or where transmission lines are built.
They go to load.
So yes, there is a possibility that under certain circumstances that a few electrons, let's just figuratively speaking, that would go to the ported sub station would find their way trickling in small numbers through our existing transmission lines.
But this in no way,
that would affect the reliability of our system, only to the extent that the 75 year old, 70 many cases, older wooden poles would be replaced with these giant poles.
But the reliability thing, in fact, you could actually, if you modernize those existing transmission lines, you can double the capacity by just using modern wire.
So figuratively, technically, there's no,
There's no real, real reliability advantage.
They say that there is, again, put that in writing, write that in your letter.
What precisely is the reliability benefit for me on my farm at this existing transmission line?
That's the kind of intense landowner questioning that we need to be doing.
All of the, you don't ask me, I'm not, you know, I've just been a guy following this for 20 years.
You need to get,
You need to get asked the questions and you need to get your lawmakers asking the questions along with you.
I think being
respectful, right?
Of course.
Yeah.
And like, don't waste your time complaining.
Ask for solid information.
That is what you need.
Don't complain about the fact that you haven't done this or you haven't done that.
Just repeat again.
please send me the information I requested, whether you're a county supervisor, whether a cooperative electric board member who unanimously approved it.
Don't just sit there and let the, oh, you know, they don't want to say anything.
Make them.
give you answers.
And politely, like you say, it's, you know, this is not crap.
This is information that is reasonable and they just simply need to be asked over and over and over again.
And the more copies of that request that your state lawmakers get, perhaps a little bit more fire will get in their belly.
Um, will you, I mean, you haven't heard a lot of information.
Will you be able to find out if they've dropped this idea and gone elsewhere?
And will you be dancing for joy?
Well, um,
as you mentioned you know the it's the they will not in 17 instances I don't know what roughly 30 of those um yeah that's pretty much what they did they just said that I don't gotta perfectly you know describe it but essentially like the capital the social costs
the popularity issues involved with it or the amount of information.
Basically, they probably were asked information that they just simply did not want to reveal and people got completely impatient and put the heat under their lawmakers.
Interesting.
We don't have a good record of that in Wisconsin.
There was the Cardinal Hickory Creek Transmission Line proposal was the last one for Madison down to go through Cassville across the river in that area.
The Public Service Commission staff came up with a $900,000 alternative to a $652 million expansion transmission line, this concept of these big gutsy lines.
And the commissioners just ignored it.
They just said, well, you know, we'd rather kind of go with what the utilities are saying.
And when their own staff engineers came up with the same benefits as the $652 million.
So that's another problem that we have is our commissioners are not the public part of their commissioning job is way less than the non-public part of their commissioning job in my opinion, based on their behavior and their decision making.
So that's elections are coming up.
or some of the candidates are really outspoken about, you know, what they want to see happen with the appointments that they make to the public service commission.
This is one way.
This is election season.
Our lawmakers are out running around talking about stuff they think people want to hear.
Yet, you know, I haven't heard any, I get their brochures and stuff, even the ones from our area.
They don't mention mention is they know their phones are ringing off the hook, but
This is an election.
This is a key issue.
I remember the transmission line you talked about from Madison to Dubuque, I
guess it is.
I remember seeing lots of signs up against it at that time.
Do you think that we'll start seeing, as people learn about this, maybe seeing a few signs in this area?
I
think you'll probably see some signs.
There are already some that are cropping up.
Yeah, I mean, the yard signs are all over Vernon and Crawford County because of that proposal is a year ahead of this one.
Um, yeah, that's a, but again, I'm, I'm just a guy who is kind of a tech head guy who tries to keep track of the technical and perhaps some of the legal aspects of it as best as I can.
I'm not a lawyer, but I, um,
I leave it to the good people and the good communities to decide what's appropriate.
On this program, we would gladly give equal time to
you know, if they want to come to the program and explain what they're doing, that would be wonderful, right?
See, that would be at Connect at MGSWisconsin.com, and there's a phone number here.
And you can also ask them when you're talking to them, when will they submit their application to the PSC?
Because everything works backwards from there.
Until they tell us that, the lack of information is, you know,
deafening
people need to bring their questions concerns and you know and I guess you'll be there that night
to answer questions around one of the presenters that night and it will look forward to having a we do have a lot of there have been a lot of suggestions that have been made by landowners and they all focus around the idea of
for requesting, you know, civilly requesting expected information and making sure that's delivered in a timely way.
That
meeting is Thursday, July 16th, 6 p.m.
at the Phoenix Center here in Richland Center.
Rob, anything else you want to add today?
Well, just thanks for the opportunity to be able to share these.
you know it's it's not as I said it's not one of the funnest things you know that I spend feelings that I have driving around worrying about you know how people are waking up and facing this um but you know it's uh we all do what we can do and and uh I think that if we um
There will be a lot of landowners at this meeting that are having some very, very sobering recognitions.
So we have to be with each other.
We have to realize that this is very stressful.
And then we need to use that potential anger and stress in a positive way to make sure that the outcome that we expect from our elected officials and we expect from our community.
We just have to move in a powerful, positive, concerted way and assume that I was once told by a dairy farmer up in the town of LaValle, not too far from here, when the town board was meeting about the Badger Cooley transmission line back in 2010.
That's when I first got involved because it would come right through Lafarge where I live.
And he stood up and the town was going home and and they're going like, well, we don't know what to do.
You know, it's brand new out of the air and stuff.
And he stood up and he was still in his boots.
And he said, well, I know one thing.
He said that course for this line would go right across highway 33.
And he said, I go under that line every day and you go under that line every day.
He said, I guarantee you that I am not going to be hanging my head.
if that line should be put in across that road.
And I think that's kind of what it comes down to.
I took away from that, that that's really kind of what it is about and all important decisions that are being made.
Yeah, there might be, who knows, there could be some incredible information revealed.
I haven't seen that happen except for the PSC staff showing that there was a much cheaper way to do it.
So we don't know what will happen, but we have to
wake up with the fresh attitude every day and take our fears and take our concerns and we have to act on those in positive ways.
So that other people are inspired and they act similarly.
Rob always a pleasure.
Good to have you in today.
Thank you Phil.
Rob Danielson joining us again that meeting coming up next Thursday night at the Phoenix Center.
