Scientist Mark Borchardt and Surgeon Gwen Stone live near Marshfield in a lovely home on 10 acres with 200-year-old maples and oaks, a prairie they planted, and a pond.  But in a year or two their home could be gone – because Enbridge wants to add another tar sands pipeline in its Line 61 corridor that cuts diagonally through Wisconsin, from Superior to Delavan. To protect their home and property, the couple founded the landowner group 80 Feet is Enough! In 2016.  

Both have worked hard their entire lives to earn their dream home, an isolated cabin in the woods, but now their dream is threatened. Enbridge could try to use eminent domain to take more land of their piece of bliss.  Driving the dagger further into the heart of their dreams are the restrictions that would be imposed upon the couple’s ability to plant or build anything on their land, and the responsibility of the couple to still pay taxes on the claimed land.

Listen to their story here:

Some of the things you’ll hear:

“We want to be sure too that people understand that we are not trying to stop the current pipeline or the current oil that’s here. Enough oil runs under our driveway everyday to power Germany.  So it’s not fair to paint us as anti-oil or anti-pipeline; we have huge amount of oil on our property and have assumed a great risk already with having this run through our property. We don’t want any more.”
– Gwen Stone

“We think it is completely unconstitutional that a private company, let alone a company from Canada, has the power of eminent domain to forcibly take our property against our will. The question for politicians is if they agree or disagree with the power of a foreign oil pipeline company to forcibly take Wisconsin Wisconsin’s citizens land.”
-Mark Borchardt

Then sign the petition here