George Crocker speaks at rally in Minnesota

Transmission line opponents and landowners are trying to stop the American Transmission Line Company from building the Duluth to Wausau electric transmission line. A veteran transmission line fighter George Crocker speaks against the "electricity barons." click here for live stream broadcast

in the mud and woods people rallied against utility trespass

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Anti- transmission line opponents and landowners, lead by the grassroots group SOUL (Save Our Unique Land), gathered in Midway Township, in Minnesota in February trying to stop construction on the Duluth to Wausau electric line. Earlier this week, the American Transmission Line Company poured the first footing for the line on an existing right way.  SOUL argues that it is premature to start building without acquiring other easements on the line route  in Minnesota and Wisconsin. An attorney for the landowners has demanded the utilities stop construction.  Nick Vander Puy from the Superior Broadcast Network reports.

 

Using a pickup truck as an impromptu stage on a muddy road, George Crocker of Minnesota fires up the crowd. 

 

“I think the first thing to say is big thank you to Minnesota Power, to Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, to American Transmission line Company, that’s why we’re all here.”

 

Crocker challenges the company’s right to pour concrete for the new line.

 

“This is a bully move.  They have no authority to do what they’re doing out there if we are a nation and a people of law.  They have no authority.  Yet they went and did it. (They’re outlaws.)

 

Earlier the Wisconsin Public Service Commission and the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board  approved construction of the transmission line, accepting the utility's arguments  that building  the line would   improve electric service.  But Crocker says building the new line doesn’t have anything to do about reliability.

 

“That power line is for one thing only and that’s greed.   That’s to allow the captains of industry in Chicago and Milwaukee to get the cheap power they covet from flooding the Indians in northern Manitoba, burning the coal in Dakota, causing acid rain and global warming, and all the rest of it so they can have cheap power. That’s what this is about whether or not the Corporate Reich.... whether or not the Corporate Reich gets its way.”

 

A spokesman for the American Transmission Company Mark Williamson says the company is within it’s rights to start construction on an existing right of way. 

 

Litigation is probable.

 

I’m Nick Vander Puy for the Superior Broadcast Network

 

 

Photos and web site design by Sandy Lyon

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