Amicus Brief

I’m talking about the economic part of this deal. I mean, it’s crazy. They don’t think of what happens when they get this ground all covered with solar panels.  Your elevators, all your your service industries. They’re going bye bye. And the money for the lease a lot of times leaves the country. They don’t stay here. It’s not reinvested…

We’ve farmed for 50 years south and west and east of Ford, and they’re going to affect us with this transmission line. I’m talking about the energy line, the feeder line. It will go across about five quarters, and they’ll split it right down the section. We’re trying to get them to change. The route goes right up against Ford where it’s at now on the west side, it would be within 500ft.  The city or city line. And, we’re not settling for that. But that’s what we’re working on right now.

Its the big tower for me and these are the big 170ft towers. They’re going to carry, my, I don’t know how much voltage.  It’s from Bucklin, along 117 road. And that’s where the super big battery pack is going to be.  And battery storage. There will be 20 acres of that on the corner of 71 and 17.  So you’re talking major. This is the big. That’s the beginning of the Grain Belt Express. That’s why the line is there. Nobody can tell us what the long term impacts of a line that powerful, health wise. And what’s that going to look like for, for us, for our families and our livestock?

Another thing…Down here at Ford, from 120 Road East, there are no power lines, no wind turbines or anything else. We got a beautiful, clean looking country all the way into Clark County. But if they get this transmission line in there…

Of course this is a property rights deal, that’s what our county commissioners say.  We can’t stop them from putting solar on their own farm. That’s a big issue that way. Our farm, we’re pretty well blocking a lot of the area, where they can’t do it. We got some neighbors the same way. The feeder lines is what they were trying to lease from us so that they can get to big line, you know, we can still stop that.  Eminent domain is not in charge of that.

We don’t want the line, but if they get it, we got to move it out of the way of town. Because right now, where they have the line, I mean, it wouldn’t be 500ft. And this is a major line we’re talking about and 70ft towers.

The fire hazard, in the county commission meeting they really didn’t mention it. That was a while back. The county doesn’t have equipment to handle electrical fires. Just like we’ve been talking about EV cars and stuff like that. And then you’re talking about a major transformer or whatever it is in that battery pack. I mean, they got no history on that stuff. So that’s where I’m coming from as well. It’s a waste, shameful waste, the whole deal.

We aren’t equipped to handle these electrical fires because we don’t know anything about them yet. We’re talking about at a county level, because our units are all county operated. They are behind the eight ball on that.

We did a lot of footwork trying to inform business owners and stuff, I did a little myself.  They just don’t get it… So you guys aren’t going to have a problem solving the fact that the ground will be covered up by solar panels. Solar panels don’t need crop consultants. That’s just one small deal. But my gosh, it will affect everything from tire shops to dealerships. That’s right.

I’m hoping Mr. Trump will shut this green thing down, and that’ll shut this whole deal down, the transmission across the rest of the globe. That’s right. You won’t have these problems if you shut down the added transmission lines. We need nuclear power. Coal fired. That’s fine, its clean.

I’m more concerned about the whole program. I see it as a money grab and the I don’t know what to say except, we see that there’s a ton of walking all over us. Nobody’s backing us up.  I would sure like the KCC and all them people to do their environmental studies because they’re just moving these transmission lines in here.

We hate to see it turn into a junkyard because that’s what it will be eventually.