The Crawford County Land Conservation Committee has had a longstanding agenda item for their meetings, ‘Industrial Solar and Wind Projects.’ At their May 12 meeting, ‘Data Centers’ was added to the topics to be addressed.

“The solar and wind project discussion has been an item on our agenda so that if people have new information, they could bring it forward,” LCC Chairperson Supervisor Gary Koch shared. “We know our county doesn't have zoning, so we really don't have any control over development, but towns or villages and cities might have some control.”

Koch, who takes a bi-weekly drive to visit his mother in southeast Wisconsin, observed that it's obvious that industrial solar is just going crazy there. He pointed out that along Highway 18, all the way east, starting in Montfort and going all the way to Waukesha, especially in Jefferson County between Cambridge and Jefferson, there used to be a whole slew of farms. He said it is all turning into solar arrays.

“It looked like there's a pair of huge power lines going through right before you get to Jefferson,” Koch shared. “I don't know what capacity those lines are, but they're huge, and I saw a bunch of new tower pieces. It looks like they're going to create another line to connect all of this solar generated power to go to some place.”

Koch observed that Crawford County Conservation Director Dave Troester had been in contact with other counties about the topic of data centers, and asked him to share what he’d learned.

“I was not able to connect with Clayton County - she's supposed to call me back early this week,” Troester responded. “I've done a lot of investigating, and I don't really have any great answers. I think there's a lot of counties that are in the wait-and-see mode.”

Troester shared that he’d found an article that popped up in his news feed about Georgia, where a data center secretly sucked out 29 million gallons of water, causing low pressure for residences. He said that article indicated that officials there are refusing to do any sort of enforcement against the company, because the data center is a great source of revenue.

Crawford County Sanitation and Zoning Technician Becky Nagel recently attended a Wisconsin Counties Code Administrators training, where the topic of data centers had come up.

“They talked about the Town of Casper and jobs, and how many jobs, but it was only going to create, 50 jobs,” Nagel reported. “It wasn't a lot of jobs, because it doesn't take a lot to run them – it just takes a lot of resources.”

Grant County

Grant County has been leading the citizen response to proposed data center development in the Driftless Region. In late winter, it came out that Grant County Economic Development’s Ron Brisbois was in discussions with an undisclosed company about developing a 500-acre data center campus in the Town of Cassville. The town board first adopted village powers, and then a two-year data center moratorium by a 54-3 vote.

The belief was that, due to development of the Cardinal-Hickory 345 kV transmission line, Grant County would be targeted for data center development. Since Cassville took action, other towns in Grant County have passed data center moratoriums, including;

• Town of Beetown, which unanimously passed a moratorium last week
• Town of Bloomington
• Town of Glen Haven is beginning the process of adopting a moratorium.

The Town of Waterloo is facing some issues in passage of a moratorium, according to an a story by Konrad Strzalka of Dubuque’s ‘Telegraph-Herald.’ Town Waterloo voters unanimously passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on April 22, but it remains unclear if the town board will vote to adopt one.

Strzalka’s story revealed that one town board member, Chairperson Chad Brinkman, is an Alliant Energy employee, and has not expressed support for a moratorium. The story reported that Brinkman had a local resident removed from town hall property in March, while the resident was collecting signatures on a petition calling for the town board to adopt village powers. The other two members of the board seem to be expressing interest in “more information.”

Grant County Indivisible, a local chapter of a nationwide group, is planning a protest outside Grant County Economic Development Corporation’s Wednesday, May 27 meeting at the Castle Rock Inn in rural Muscoda, starting at 5 p.m.

Event organizers comment about the planned protest, “The Grant County Economic Development Corporation needs to better understand that AI data centers are not welcome here!”

Vernon County

According to an article by News Channel 8, Vernon County is also moving aggressively to encourage its townships to adopt moratoriums. Vernon County Zoning and Sanitation Director Matt Albright plans to visit with all Vernon County Town Boards in the next 60 days, and is optimistic they will agree with the idea.

Vernon County is one of just three counties in the state without any general zoning ordinance to govern townships, along with Crawford and Grant counties. This means, there would be no mechanism for a county review of any proposed data center development.

In other business

In other business, the Crawford County Land Conservation Committee:

• held a public hearing about a proposed update to the county’s subdivision ordinance
• learned that Zoning and Sanitation is really getting busy with septic system installs, permits, and pumping reports
• heard that the Gruber Livestock, LLCs are up and up and running with site preparation and grading, with Crawford County Conservation Technician Travis Bunting onsite with them quite a bit
• learned that Dennis Gruber had been in contact with Troester about making a financial contribution to help support the county’s well testing initiative
• heard that at the e-waste collection event in Prairie du Chien on April 17, they had 277 vehicles and filled almost two trailers full
• learned that Russ Gillitzer has been formally appointed to serve on the land conservation committee
• heard that in the recent round of Driftless Area Water Study (DAWS) well water testing, Crawford County had 100 samples, and there were a combined 300-350 samples with Vernon and Richland counties. Results have now been mailed out to participants
• Crawford County’s public information meeting about high-level, non-well-owner-specific results will take place on Saturday, June 27, from 4-6 p.m., at the Gays Mills Community Commerce Center
• Vernon County will hold their follow-up meeting on Tuesday, June 9, in the County Board Room at 12 p.m., and Richland County will hold their meeting on Thursday, June 25, at 5 p.m., at the Richland Center Community Center
• learned from Crawford Stewardship Project’s Ellen Brooks that their organization continues their surface water quality monitoring efforts in the county, and has a site for monitoring water coming off the Gruber North LLC facility, and two ongoing sites for water coming off the Gruber South LLC facility.