ComEd Community Gardens a Dying Breed

By Prescott Carlson in News on Aug 8, 2010 4:00PM

As urban development marches on and green space becomes harder to come by, community gardens are great spaces for residents to exercise their green thumbs and get their hands dirty growing flowers and vegetables in what would otherwise be an empty space. One of the more popular spots for community gardens in the suburbs were the underutilized ares below the ComEd power lines crisscrossing throughout various villages.

But the Daily Herald reports that practice is just about coming to an end -- nearly all of the gardens on ComEd right-of-ways have been phased out, and one of the last survivors in Des Plaines is about ready to come to an end. Why? What does ComEd care if locals want to spruce up the land that their leasing, often from taxpayer funded entities? Apparently in the "interest of fairness." ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick told the DH that, "No matter how well an individual program is being run, ComEd can't allow garden plots in some communities and not in others." ComEd has also told a "guerrilla garden" it just recently found out about on a right-of-way in Mount Prospect to clear out as well.

So here's a solution, ComEd -- allow the creation of garden plots in all communities instead of going the other way and banning them altogether. It's not as if they detract from the aesthetics of your eyesore towers that dot the suburbs. Instead of allowing your 5,500 miles of right-of-way space to sit and grow weeds, be the good guy and allow people to use it and enjoy it.

ComEd maintains that the gardens also are possible "hazards" and that they do not have "the personnel available to oversee these kind of property uses on our right-of-ways."