SHEBOYGAN CO — For Pat Roby, her home of 40 years was love at first sight.
“I immediately got my husband and told him, “You’ve got to come and see what this place looks like.’”
She’s poured herself into improving and maintaining the property over the years, planting nearly 60 trees.
“Land is precious and you work hard to get your land,” Roby noted.
With the recent approval of an ATC power line project, all that hard work will be for nothing.
“They’re probably going to be cutting down all the trees right over through there," Roby said, her finger scanning the length of her yard. “And when they clear cut it, you’re going to be able to see everything that goes on [at] Highway V.”
The Plymouth Reliability Project aims to make power more accessible and reliable in four main areas: the ANR natural gas pipeline, the DNR fish hatchery, the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution, and the Town of Mitchell.
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The Wisconsin Public Service Commission was the last deciding entity on the project.
On Dec. 12, it approved the preferred route which impacts 49 properties. The other proposed route would’ve impacted only 41.
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“We can’t sleep at night. I mean, we wake up thinking about it,” Roby explained. “We think about the animals, we think about the birds.”
Chris and Jen Kestell think about their award-winning livestock and fourth-generation farm destined to be run by their two boys one day.
WATCH: A SHOCKING REALITY: Proposed power lines threaten multi-generational, award-winning farm
“Knowing their love of this house and this farm, we haven’t shared with them…too much…that the poles are going in,” Jen said wiping tears from her cheeks.
The Kestells and Roby are a part of Neighbors4Neighbors (N4N), a group working to stop the power project.
They say transparency was a constant issue over the last year.
“I felt great for what we did because we brought to light that communication wasn’t happening,” Jen remarked. “How severely close we are to the line, and how that was not captured in the application.”
The PSCW acknowledged it too.
At a Dec. 12 meeting, Commissioner Summer Strand made a comment directed at ATC:
“I do encourage them to re-examine their community outreach and consider ways to improve the interactions, especially with those impacted by projects.”
N4N is planning to appeal the project approval.
“If we lose again, we’re going to have to sell our home and our farm to move somewhere else,” Chris insisted. “Because we’re not going to live under the lines.”
Although it’s not the outcome the group was hoping for, it brought the community closer.
“I could have lived out here for 40 years and not known the people who are here,” Roby said. “This is one of the great things that is coming out of this…is we are now learning about our neighbors.”
ATC is waiting for a final written order on the route before moving forward with the project. Construction is expected to start next fall.
