We need your help. Willistown Conservation Trust, with the support of our broad community of conservationists, has led the effort to preserve more than 7,500 acres of open space and natural and scenic resources in the Willistown (PA) area over the last 40 years.
Now PECO, an Excelon company, is threatening to negatively impact the important conservation work we have done by planning to remove as many as 650 trees and to construct new 45' to 50' high poles along the scenic roads in the Willistown countryside.
To our knowledge, PECO has not undertaken any environmental impact studies to determine the destructive implications of removing these trees, nor have they addressed the scenic and historical impact of tree removal and high poles on roads passing through 3 locations in Willistown that are on the National Register of Historic Places: Okehocking Historic District, White Horse Corner and Historic Sugartown.
We need your help to mitigate the potential environmental and historical damage of this project. Please sign our petition demanding that PECO not move forward with this potentially destructive plan until they have:
- Considered all alternatives to the current plan. It is unclear that the system upgrade is necessary to serve this community because of the limited development potential due to the thousands of acres of permanently protected lands. More likely, it is the path of least resistance to get high capacity transmission to other areas.
- Found a way to significantly decrease the number of trees to be removed and the height of the poles to be constructed.
- Have studied the environmental impact of extensive tree removal to help guide restoration efforts that could serve to offset some of the damage caused by the project.
- Have studied the impact of this tree removal and high poles on our three Federally Designated Historic Districts. Some of these trees and others in the area may be as old as our nation.
From all of us at Willistown Conservation Trust, thank you for taking this critical action to preserve the natural resources and scenic beauty of the Willistown countryside!
Visit SpareOurTrees.org for more information and to learn about other action you can take.
