Protecting & Preserving Our Rural Legacies

Photograph from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Press Release for Joint Opposition-sponsored Public Information Meeting Concerning the Uplands and Badger Hollow wind power plant proposals for Iowa, Lafayette and Grant Counties,

While a handful of alert leaders and landowners began sharing concerns after the disappointing Cardinal Hickory Creek (CHC) decision in 2019, fewi would have predicted that the rate of utility development would bring residents and local governments of Southwestern Wisconsin to the brink of a truly historic, “protect or wreck” moment as soon as 2024.

The dilemma does not stem from heated politics or cultural debate. In largest part, its inherited from the half truths and secrecies implanted by merchant utility sales agents, likes of which are still traveling our lands making acquisitions for the largest utility interestsii in the world.

As early as 2012, when CHC was only a toddler on utility wish lists,iii utility sales agents began to increasingly canvas landowners twenty or more miles north and south of anticipated giant transmission lines’ path. Over and over and over, agents drove down driveways asking for signatures on secretly held, inescapable, 60+ page documents that grant the utility “site control” for 20-30 years, if not, practically, speaking indefinitely.iv Only recently has it become apparent that a significant number of landowners in the Livingston vicinity signed site control contracts starting in 2018 after being told the half-truth that doing so would not conflict with their voiced opposition to CHC. The untold half was that the planned, Part II, of Badger Hollow Solar directly conflicted with CHC opposition as did use for Badger-Hollow and Uplands Wind.v

The phrase, ‘site control’ is actual, utility-parlancevi for documenting progress on critical, land use and easement rights required for a large network of essential electrical connections. What does giving a utility ‘site control’ of one’s land actually entail? When they were signing, did landowners understand they were giving the right to exercise a broad set of “options” across their land? Did the sales agents encourage landowners to stop and consider that signing automatically subjects their neighbors to endless high pressure sales techniques? And on and on and on?

Utilities don’t just erect pieces of highly visible infrastructure, they require and build expansive networks of land control.

Outlined land parcel has no wind turbines but enables an enormous network.

Was the participation status of neighbors always accurately portrayed by sales agents? After signing, landowners report feeling afraid and avoiding all discussion about contracts.

These are but some of the concerning questions that volunteer residents opposed to the Uplands and Badger Hollow Wind power plants will be answering and discussing on August 15, at the Belmont Conference Center starting at 7 PM, 103 W Mound View Ave., Belmont, WI.

Titled, Preserving and Protecting our Rural Legacies, the event hopes to address the assault on deeply held rural traditions vulnerable to steady demise should the approximately 400 square miles of land impacted by the Uplands Windvii and Badger Hollow Windviiiproposals receive consummation by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, as soon as December, 2025.ix At least two additional power plant developments and another massive transmission expansion project wait on the sidelines.x Unless residents and local governments rise to the occasion and force the PSC to honor public interests above corporate interests, PSC approval of these massive projects stands to foster new waves of utility and industrial development across our lands.

Threatened, rural traditions to be considered include:

Openness and Honesty. Humanity’s time-honored religiousxi and non-religious teachings stress the importance of respecting our neighbors as much as we respect ourselves. When activities that undercut this foundation for peace and happiness get accepted, nothing good comes of it. If the ‘benefits’ are as worthy of community trust as utilities claim, they would certainly survive the light of day.

Habitat Priorities. While farmers rely on cash crops for economic survival, most regard avoiding interference with natural habitats at the top of their lists. Presenters will inform attendees about likely, negative impacts on our already threatened bat populations and water contamination risks accelerated by abandoned lead mines and vulnerable karst topologies.

Lead mining contaminants in the Mineral Point area superimposed on a small portion of Pattern’s preliminary Uplands Wind infrastructure plan. Mining features from p. 30 DIGITAL ATLAS OF HISTORIC MINING ACTIVITY IN SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN

The public will be informed of ways to prepare for participation in the upcoming Public Service Commission review process and make these unacceptable threats abundantly clear.

Public Health Priorities. Under high wind speeds, three families in the Montfort area are being forced to leave their homes due to extreme, repetitive, air pressure changes created by the relatively smaller, 551′ foot high wind turbines constructed for Red Barn. The public will be shown scientific records synchronizing turbine activity to tragic health consequences and ways that landowners many miles from proposed wind plants can estimate their health risks.

Local Economy Priorities. Trading, bartering and investing dollars locally, whenever possible, is fundamental to rural economies from the very first homesteads.. The monetary value of landowners’ greatest asset, the land itself, has been rising at the rate of 6% per yearxii when not compromised by utility obstructions and controls. In this 10 minute session, landowners and local governments will be encouraged to compare the value of their land and tax revenues, over coming decades, with and without utility incursions. Alternatives to utility scale wind plants towards the goal of CO2 emission reduction will also be outlined.

Restoring Local Control. A long-held fundamental right of local government planning has been to personally determine what kinds of activities are compatible with long-term community goals. Towns used ordinances and application processes to learn about and evaluate the details of any proposed development within their jurisdictions. Wisconsin and Lawmakers unwittingly eliminated this right at the same time they created a de-regulated utility class. Today, dozens of these “merchant” utilities are active canvasing our state.xiii This presentation will focus on deficiencies in Wisconsin laws that must be corrected and actions citizens can take to promote the restoration of fundamental community rights as soon as possible.

The event to be held on August 15th at the Belmont Conference Center starting at 7 PM, is made possible by donations from unaffiliated opposition volunteers.xiv It is free and open to the public of all ages. We’ll have a pickle jar to help support the educational and outreach activities encouraged in presentations.


– Rob Danielson, Opposition Volunteer

CITATIONS

i Village of Montfort President, Jim Schmitz, drove to North Dakota to witness the buildout around expansion transmission lines there. After that trip he vociferously warned landowners that a large number of power plants and transmission transmission lines were soon to follow. Jim passed in 2022.

ii The worth of Invenergy has been estimated at $10 billion, but actual figures are held in privacy.

iii See pdf. p. 9, Project No. 5, Figure 1-3: Proposed MVP portfolio. MTEP 2011

iv To date, no utility has decommissioned an industrial scale wind power plant in Wisconsin. The smaller class wind turbines at Montfort were installed 24 years ago. The turbines at Green Field Blue Sky, erected in 2007, were replaced (repowered) in 2023. See PSC REF: 482715.

v MISO interconnection records show that all power plant construction in the area, except for the first half (150 MW) of Badger Hollow Solar depend on 345 kV Cardinal Hickory Creek Expansion Transmission line. The Iowa County Board had officially opposed the CHC line before farmers were misled.

vihttps://cdn.misoenergy.org/Site%20Control%20Submission%20Checklist625894.pdf

vii The most recent, official information for Uplands Wind is the September 27, 2023, 180 Day CPCN Pre-Application Notice: https://apps.psc.wi.gov/ERF/ERFview/viewdoc.aspx?docid=480525

viii The most recent, official information for Badger Hollow Wind is Pattern Energy’s May 20, 2024 Engineering Plan https://apps.psc.wi.gov/ERF/ERFview/viewdoc.aspx?docid=502198

ix Based on August 2024 application submission for Badger Hollow Wind. Pattern has announced that it will submit its application for Uplands Wind coming months.

x See second 345 kV expansion transmission line in the area being discussed within industry circles. https://bit.ly/3countyutilitydistrict . It is reported that land-owners in the Towns of Mount Hope, Mount Ida, Fennimore, N. and S. Lancaster, Liberty, Patch Grove, Beetown and Glen Haven are being pressured to sign lease options.

xi Matthew 22:37–39 . “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. “This is the first and great commandment. “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”

xii Wisconsin Agricultural Land Prices 2023, https://farms.extension.wisc.edu/articles/wisconsin-agricultural-land-prices/

xiii See 66.0401 State Statute Citations and Map of Emerging Utility Districts in Wisconsin, https://bit.ly/WI-Utility-Districts-Map

xiv Some of the study materials developed by opposition volunteers can be accessed through https://no-uplands.com/

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