I’m a volunteer with Block RICL and a young, area farmer. Recently, vandals damaged my property, breaking off my Block RICL sign. I wish those people would put their energy into learning more about Block RICL’s cause.

Block RICL is a grassroots group that opposes a private company, Rock Island Clean Line, and its proposed erection of power lines across private property for their profit. I’m a landowner who will lose farm ground to access roads and 200-foot towers with at least 28-square foot footprints. RICL wants 200-foot-wide easements across my business forever.

If RICL gets the Illinois Commerce Commission to grant it public utility status, it will then be able to apply for eminent domain, meaning it would seize part of my farming business for “the good of the public.” This project will not benefit Illinoisans, and 10 Eastern governors have stated they don’t want to buy expensive western energy as they want to develop their own in-state energy using Federal Clean Energy Act stimulus money.