We’re launching a podcast. It’s called Not a Done Deal, because that’s the single most important thing to know about the two 765,000-volt transmission lines, MariBell and BECI, proposed to cross southern Wisconsin.

In episode 1, Michael Browne talks with Rob Danielson, who has tracked utility expansion projects since the Badger Coulee fight in 2010, days after Midcontinent Grid Solutions mailed landowners across nine counties and published 78 preliminary “study segments” for the proposed BECI line.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

What’s in the episode

• What a 765 kV line actually is: a 250-foot-wide easement and towers roughly 200 feet tall, larger than anything built in Wisconsin today.
• Who’s building MariBell and BECI: two separate projects, two separate development teams, and who profits.
• The information-request “punch list”: the specific maps and details every potentially affected landowner can ask the developer for, in writing: the centerline on a high-resolution map of your parcels, the easement width drawn to scale, construction areas, access roads, and tower locations and heights.
• How to work an open house: send your letter first, bring a copy, get names, take extra comment forms, and ask when landowners get one-on-one meetings with siting engineers.
• Why organized landowners win: in the Badger Coulee proceeding, the communities that demanded information earliest were excluded from the final corridors.
• The deadlines: developer open houses run August 24–27 (county-by-county schedule in the episode and on our events page), and the developer’s comment deadline is September 7.

Listen above on Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts; Amazon Music is still processing the feed.

Chapters

• 0:00 · Cold open: “This is not a done deal”
• 0:35 · Welcome; who Rob Danielson is
• 6:33 · What a 765 kV line actually is (250-ft easement, ~200-ft towers)
• 10:22 · Who’s building MariBell and BECI
• 14:46 · How MISO planning works, and who drives it
• 17:12 · The 78 study segments, the letters, and the February target
• 22:27 · Take it seriously: land, family, habitat, and lawyers
• 25:07 · The landowner punch list: maps, easement width, construction areas, access roads, towers
• 32:59 · You have more power than you think: the Badger Coulee precedent
• 36:07 · Template letters and finding sample language
• 44:37 · The 37-month precedent vs. a 7-month sprint
• 49:37 · The existing-corridor question: § 1.12(6) and the 9% figure
• 1:00:16 · County-by-county open house schedule (Aug 24–27)
• 1:01:24 · Working the open house: letters, names, forms, siting engineers
• 1:07:24 · After the open house: surveyors and land agents
• 1:09:44 · One thing to do today