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Some towers for new ComEd lines could be erected in Muirhead Springs

Farm owners near the Muirhead Springs Forest Preserve will take a second chance at persuading state officials to divert new electric lines and towers away from their property with a little help from the Kane County Forest Preserve District. It's a plan at least one property owner deems "a deal with the devil."

Kane County Forest Preserve District officials worked a deal with ComEd to allow the lines to run through the Muirhead Springs preserve in trade for $319,000.

District officials have been amenable to allowing ComEd to place the towers in the preserve, rather than the neighboring farms, in trade for cash or help paying for a new trail crossing in St. Charles over the Fox River.

But the Illinois Commerce Commission dashed those initial plans when it approved a different version for the path of the power lines at the end of 2014. That path runs the lines along the outside of the preserve and through several existing farms.

The new lines are part of ComEd's new $200 million Grand Prairie Gateway project to improve electricity transmission in the area. It will stretch about 60 miles of power lines carrying 345,000 volts between a substation in Byron and one near Wayne.

The current plan for the towers' path involves erecting about 17 new power towers around the outside of Muirhead. But forest preserve district officials said Thursday they would take $319,000 from ComEd in trade for allowing the company to put about five towers along an existing set of railroad tracks that runs through the Muirhead preserve.

Doing that requires a permanent easement for ComEd through the preserve that will be about 190 feet wide and about 2,000 feet long, roughly 8.4 acres in total land.

Forest preserve district Commissioner Deb Allan said she wasn't sure the $319,000 was enough compensation. That money may help the district buy more land, but it isn't enough to construct trails to make the land accessible, she said.

"So how do we engage a public that's liable to look at us as selling out?" Allan asked.

ComEd officials said the district can apply for a ComEd grant to fund such a trail.

Commissioners gave tentative approval to the plan Thursday, but not without voicing some concern about a new harm they are creating.

Commissioner Barb Wojnicki noted running the lines through the preserve will put them much closer to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed farmhouse the Muirhead family still owns and operates. The family has petitioned the ICC to keep the lines away from the farmhouse.

Wojnicki asked if there was any way to keep the deal but minimize the impact to the farmhouse. District attorneys said there was nothing they could do.

Mike Petersdorf's wife, Sarah, is the daughter of the man who sold the Muirhead preserve to the district. He said the pending deal puts him in the odd position of fighting against the same government body his father-in-law trusted to keep the land free of intrusions like the pending power lines.

"To say we're a little disappointed in the forest district is putting it very civilly," Petersdorf said. "They passed referendums on the basis of preserving open space, and none of that has anything to do with allowing utility easements through their property."

Petersdorf said he will have a tower within a few hundred feet of his driveway if the forest district gets what it wants. That's in contrast to the current path of the lines, which would take them through farmland almost no one lives on right now, he said.

"All this is about is those farmers don't want to lose value on their land when they sell it to developers, which they all want to do," Petersdorf said. "The forest preserve is basically trying to make a deal with the devil."

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