Farmington, WI – Thirty-five years ago, Rebecca (my wife) and I purchased 10 acres of wilderness along the Milwaukee River and began to dream. A few years later, after paying off the land we cleared a small part of ground, and after having quite the battle with the county land use commission we began to build our dream home.
First, we built a small garden shed and then purchased 300 red pine logs from up north. Over the next 9 months we, with the help of family and friends built our cabin in the woods on weekends and holidays while living part time in our little shed and both working full-time to pay for it.
Over the years we planted 1000’s of trees, wildflowers, and bushes for the wildlife living in our woods. Along with our children and grandchildren we also built a log barn, hog house, chicken coop and garage to house all our collections of chicken sheep pigs geese, antique tools and equipment and thought we would live here happily ever after. Then pass it down to our children.
So, imagine our surprise when a few days ago one of our neighbors came to our door and asked if we had heard of the new power line they wanted to put on our property. We had not! She informed us that THAT NIGHT was the final review meeting for the proposed project, which unfortunately we were unable to attend. Since then, information has been scattered, incomplete, and confusing. We have since procured a glossy folder from a Company ATC who is commissioned to run high voltage power lines and while the folder is all shiny and colorful it provides little useful information.
Here is what I believe it means to us if this project would go through. They intend to run the line at least 75 feet from the highway and require a 150 feet clear cut easement for access to the lines down the entire length of our property. In order to achieve this, it will require then to remove my log barn, shed, garage AND my home then cut down hundreds of mature trees, bushes and wildflowers. It will also run through our little steam, wetlands and gardens. All between the highway and along the Milwaukee River. When asked why they were not running on the opposite side of the highway which is all open farmland for miles I could get no answer.
The government has a poor history of disposing people from their land under the law of “eminent domain.”
One noteworthy case is that of the Cherokee Natives in Georgia in 1930 when the government decide they wanted the land the natives owned they simply passed the “Indian Removal Act” in 1830 and even though the Cherokee tribe won a Supreme Court ruling against removal the government force the people from their land and drove them thousands of miles west killing many of them in the dead of winter. The so-called
Trail of Tears.While my story is much less dramatic the effect is the same. If the government and powers that be decide to take my home and my land and pay me only what they deem fair, they will simply do it. we will be forced to leave. I am going on 74 and my wife, 73, has Parkinsons, we have 5 generations of family, collections and history in Washington County. I quite simply cannot imagine trying to uproot my entire life so someone, somewhere can plug in their computer.
Jerome H Zelenka
Farmington, WI
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