A note to our Walworth County neighbors

There's a map going around with our farms on it.

Midcontinent Grid Solutions is studying routes for the BECI 765-kV transmission line, and right now, some of those study segments run straight through prime agricultural ground and working farms — the same fields with the drainage tile our grandfathers laid, the same Oaks and Hickory’s that took decades to grow, the same soil we've spent years building instead of stripping.

 We're not against the grid. Wisconsin needs power, and everybody's got an opinion about what's pulling that demand — we'll let you form your own on that one. What we're against is routing a 765-kV line through the middle of a hay or bean field when there's a highway right-of-way or an existing transmission corridor a half-mile over that would do the job without touching a single tile line.

Here's what's actually at stake if a route lands on working ag land:

• Drainage tile — you don't find it until the tower crew hits it, and by then it's a $40,000 problem, not a survey note.

• Soil compaction — concrete foundations and heavy equipment don't come back out when the project's done. That ground is different forever.

• Soil organic matter — every pass of a crew truck or crane on wet ground grinds down the structure and biology we've spent years building back up. That's not a cosmetic loss — it's yield, for a long time after the trucks leave.

• Timber and wetlands — old growth doesn't regrow on anyone's construction schedule. And wetlands aren't wasted ground — they're what filters our water on its way through the system, and they're home to the fish, amphibians, and waterfowl that depend on them staying intact.

• The line itself — towers through a working field change how you farm it, permanently, whether or not anyone ever asks if that's alright.

None of that is a reason to panic. It's a reason to speak up early, while the routes are still just lines on a study map and not steel in the ground — because that's the window where a route can actually still move.

And it can move. Just this week, sustained, organized public comment pushed Wisconsin regulators to send a different major transmission project back to the drawing board over concerns the public couldn't get a straight answer on where it would actually go. That's not a promise MGS does the same thing here — different project, different company — but it's proof that when landowners show up together and on the record, the people making these decisions notice.

So let's show up together.

Before September 7, 2026:

1. Go to mgs-projects.com and submit a comment. Ask, plainly, that the route follow existing transportation corridors and established transmission easements — not prime ag soils and working farms. Specific and calm beats loud every time with a regulatory body.

2. If a surveyor or land agent comes by before you've had a chance to think it through, it's fine to say "not yet" and get some advice first. Nobody loses anything by taking a beat before signing.

3. Come talk it through with your neighbors. We're hosting a meeting at Brown Dog Farm on Sunday, August 23rd at 4:00 PM — bring your questions, your maps, your skepticism, all of it. And MGS is holding an open house at Lake Lawn Lodge on Thursday, August 27th from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM — worth going, worth bringing a neighbor.

We've all got fields to get to. This is fifteen minutes at a keyboard for the sake of the ground we're standing on. Worth it.