Right-of-Way Clearing in Southern Illinois

What counts as a right-of-way

A right-of-way is any corridor someone has the right to use or access, and out here in Marion, Jefferson, Fayette, Clinton, Bond, and Effingham counties they take a few different shapes. The job is the same idea every time: keep a strip open and clean without tearing up everything around it.

• Utility easements — the strips under and around power lines, where co-ops and electric companies need a clear corridor to run and service their lines
• Pipeline routes — gas and product lines cross a lot of farm ground in this part of the state, and those corridors have to stay clear of woody growth
• Private access roads — the lane back to a field, a cabin, a well head, or a back building that has grown in on both sides
• Township and county roadsides — ditch banks and shoulders that have filled in with brush and blocked the sight lines at corners
• Fence lines and property edges — the legal line between two parcels that nobody can mow once the hedge takes over

Right-of-way clearing vs brush clearing vs fence lines

These jobs get talked about like they are the same thing, and they overlap, but the difference matters when you are pricing a project. Brush clearing opens up an area of ground. Right-of-way work follows a line. You are clearing a set width down the length of a corridor, the edges have to stay defined, and you are usually working around overhead lines, buried utilities, or a boundary you cannot cross.

A fence line clearing job is really a kind of right-of-way work — a narrow corridor along a property edge — and if that is what you are after, that guide goes deeper on hedge rows specifically. The rest of this page is about the longer, wider corridors: easements, access roads, and roadsides.

Why corridors grow up so fast here

An open corridor is a perfect place for the worst of our local brush to take hold. There is full sun down the middle, disturbed soil along the edges, and birds dropping seed from the wire above. Leave it a few seasons and it fills in.

What moves in is the same cast we fight everywhere in Southern Illinois: bush honeysuckle, autumn olive, and multiflora rose crowding the low growth, Osage orange — what most folks call hedge — taking over the fence lines, and eastern redcedar marching out from the edges. Every one of those comes back hard from a cut stump or a seed bank, so a corridor that just gets bush-hogged once is open again before long. That is the case for mulching: the layer of chips it leaves behind shades the ground and slows the regrowth down.

Call JULIE before anyone clears a utility corridor

This is the part people skip, and it is the part that matters most on an easement. If a job involves any grinding below grade, stump work, or soil disturbance near buried lines, Illinois law requires a free locate request through JULIE — the state one-call system — at least two working days before the work starts. You can call 811 or file online, and the utilities come mark their buried lines so nobody hits a gas main or a fiber run.

Forestry mulching that only takes standing growth above the ground is lower risk, but we still get locates marked any time we are working a utility right-of-way, and we coordinate with the easement holder before we touch anything close to their lines. If you are not sure what your easement allows, check the language in your deed first, and we are happy to help you sort out who to call.

When to clear

Winter is usually the best window for corridor work, same as it is for land clearing generally. Frozen ground carries the machine clean and keeps it from rutting the soft spots, which matters on the heavy clay and creek-bottom soils that run through this country. The brush is dormant and the leaves are down, so the operator can see exactly where the corridor edge sits and hold a straight, clean line. And the ticks and snakes that make summer brush work miserable are gone.

Wet springs are the worst time, because that is when the clay is at its softest and the most likely to tear. Late summer and fall are fine once the ground dries out. If you want winter work, getting on the schedule in the fall is the smart move.

How we do the work

Most of our corridor work is right-of-way clearing done with a forestry mulcher. The machine runs the length of the strip and grinds the standing brush and saplings into mulch right where they stand, up to about 8 inches of woody material. Bigger trees in the corridor get felled first and then mulched.

• Walk and quote. We come out, walk the corridor with you, confirm the width you need held, and give you a flat number. The estimate is free.
• Locate and coordinate. On utility right-of-ways we get JULIE locates marked and check in with the easement holder before we start.
• Mark what stays. Any tree along the edge you want kept, we flag it before the head spins.
• Mulch the corridor. We run the strip to a clean, consistent width and leave the mulch on the ground.
• Grind stumps if needed. If the corridor has to be driveable or mowable, we grind the stumps below grade in the same trip.

What it costs

Corridor clearing prices out like the rest of our mulching work: roughly $1,000 to $2,750+ per acre depending on how thick the growth is, the slope, the terrain, and how easy the access is. Our flat starting price is $1,000 per acre, and stump grinding is $7.50 per inch of diameter with a $175 minimum.

For a long, narrow right-of-way we figure the cleared width times the length, convert it to acreage, and quote you a flat number before the machine starts. You know your price up front, and the risk of a slow day is on us instead of you. For the full breakdown by density and terrain, see our clearing cost guide.

We are based in Patoka and run corridors across Southern Illinois and the Metro East, with regular trips to Centralia, Salem, Vandalia, and Effingham. Send us photos and the rough length of your corridor and we will get you a free estimate.