Stop Utility Abuse of Property rights in Wisconsin.

Stronger protections are needed for the thousands of miles of transmission right-of-ways to reclaim owners rights, for environmental well-being, and to promote habitat for plants, animals and healthy local economies.

By signing this petition, you will be asking the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin to adopt and enforce guidelines, many of which are federally recommended. See  http://bit.ly/VegetationManagementPlan  for details.

Currently, state policy allows transmission line builders and utilities to grab wider and wider swaths of land, reducing easements to wastelands of monoculture and invasive species. This is fragmenting forests, degrading wetlands and farm lands where communities are struggling to maintain property values. Utilities are allowed to ignore well established, more cost effective management practices and employ massive grading, mowing and spraying processes with aftermath policy that make any woody vegetation, even raspberries, illegal.

 Good management does not consider all woody vegetation dangerous. It recognizes that a  properly managed, diverse plant community of small trees and shrubs can not only protect the electric facility and reduce long-term maintenance, but also enhance wildlife habitat, forest ecology and aesthetic values.  

It is an insult to all of our neighbors and communities who sacrifice their land for the  “public good,”  when the only recourse to responsible management are horribly expensive, personal lawsuits that are rarely successful.  Wisconsin, we can do better.

Respectfully submitted;

Lila M. Zastrow, Certified Arborist, International Society of Arboriculture (ISA),

Dave Hendrickson