When Mark Lawlor came out to the street to talk with Block Grain Belt Express landowners during our rally at the EUCI 3rd Annual Improving Transmission Right of Way Processes Conference at the Kansas City Downtown Marriott two weeks ago, one of our Kansas farmer friends had much to complain to him about. She was raised on a farm in western Kansas and tried very hard to explain to Mr. Lawlor that the farmer cares more about the environment than anyone else because they have to scratch their living from it. She was flabbergasted when he told us that his parents were Kansas farmers. Mr. Lawlor might have a 913 area code, but I wouldn’t put his “farming” ability farther away than a park - Overland Park, that is. Are politicians and Clean line reps so removed from their own responsibility of caring about where their food comes from, and having compassion for those who farm and love their land? How can Grain Belt reps like Mark Lawlor pretend to care about the earth and the ozone when caring should start at home in our hearts for the fields of farmers and for the lives of rural Americans? Our Kansas farmer friend thinks that Lawlor is truly delusional and has himself believing that it truly is about saving the environment through industrial wind turbine produced energy and all the transmission towers and lines they seem to require that so inhibit our rural way of life. I told Mr. Lawlor that I would be behind him on his windy ideas if it was truly about helping the individual home owner utilize wind energy for their own personal household use and profit, and that my oldest son is a sustainable design architect that focuses on such energy conservation measures. He just looked at me blankly. Since Clean Line is NOT an electric company and has NEVER put up a transmission line I am sick at the thought of what is really going on. It is the privatization of the energy industry with government legal backing with which to gain power over private property rights. The other golden rule applies here. Instead of do unto others as you would do unto yourself it is - “He who has the gold rules.”
Amy Harvey
Polo, Mo.