At the recent annual meeting of the Grant County Economic Development Corporation, Executive Director Ron Brisbois announced that a proposal for a $1 billion data center was being looked at for in the county.
Meta (the parent company of Facebook) and the State of Wisconsin announced a $1 billion data center outside of Beaver Dam, which would be built on 570 acres, with the principle structure being a 700,000 square foot artificial intelligence data center that would employ roughly 100 people once opened.
The proposed Grant County facility could even be bigger, as the Beaver Dam project is including $200 million in electrical infrastructure improvements to feed the energy-hungry facility.
Brisbois also stated that the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line is one of the main reasons Grant County is being looked at, with substations near Lancaster, Bloomington, Mt. Hope, Fennimore, and Cassville.
After Brisbois’ announcement, members of the Grant County Conservation, Sanitation, and Zoning Committee stated a location of outside of Cassville was a possible location for the proposed data center, with a solar farm also proposed to be constructed to help power the center.
That may sound all well and good, but opposition to a proposed data center, much like recent wind and solar farms being constructed in the county and other parts of the Driftless area, immediately took shape.
Last Friday, a group of 20 concerned area citizens took time out of their holiday weekend to meet at the Lemon Door restaurant in Fennimore, for an “informational meeting” on the proposed center.
The meeting, organized by Lemon Door owner Melodie Betts, was led by Mount Hope resident Pete Moris, who has been active in opposition to wind energy projects in Grant County and other neighboring areas.
Moris told those in attendance that data centers need land of course, water for cooling of the center’s servers, and electricity, “a lot of it,” he stressed.
A data center, as Moris explained, is “a big climate controlled warehouse with racks and racks of computer servers.”
“Google and Amazon, you have this whole online economy dependent on it. The cloud has to live somewhere and that’s these data centers,” Morris explained. “Throw AI on top of it, then that’s just like throwing an accelerant onto a fire.”
Moris explained that in areas with newly constructed data centers, electricity costs have gone up significantly. “In Virginia and other places, electricity prices have gone up for consumers and businesses 200-250 percent,” he explained.
And with many farmers in the county already hurting with prices for corn, milk, soy, etc. dipping and many on fixed incomes, Moris asked, “Is the 100 jobs this facility could create worth it? Not in my opinion.”
Moris also brought up that just as in the case of the wind and solar projects, the “low level of regulation,” due to Grant County again being a rural county.
“As we’ve seen with wind and solar, the technology and the developers are coming in before we’ve even got anything on the books to tell them here’s what you can and cannot do.”
Moris further doubted claims that the construction of the proposed center would bring in local jobs stating, “Like with Cardinal-Hickory, nobody in Grant County has the type of equipment you need. No one, no small construction firm.”
“They’d have to bring in people from over parts of the state, which is great, but those dollars are not permanent.”
The local/county sentiment was brought up when Moris brought up the recent new AY McDonald foundry in Dickeyville/Kieler.
“Hey that’s great! That’s a brand that’s been in business for almost 200 years, and been around a long time in the area,” Moris stated. “With the data center, you’re dealing with a developer, not Amazon, not Google.”
During the annual Grant County Economic Development Corporation meeting, Brisbois had stated that it is not publicly known what tech firm is looking at the county.
“They’re going to need hundreds of acres. How many absentee landowners do we have who don’t care about the area?” Moris asked. “The devil is in the details. Who’s building it and where?”
“Schools have to have referendums, but here, we don’t get to vote,” Moris further explained, and then gave a quote from Wisconsin Rep. Travis Tranel (R-Cuba City), “Local decisions need local input.”
Moris finished up his informative session by urging those there to tell others to “educate yourself” and start by contacting local village/town chairpersons, board of supervisors, etc.
“The beauty of the Driftless Region is those hills and valleys and bluffs have been here for generations and generations, and so I don’t want to be the generation who screws it up or allows it to be screwed up, and that’s why we’re calling it ‘No Data Centers in the Driftless,’ Moris finished.
Betts stated that this was just the start of a ‘No Data Centers’ grassroots campaign, with a webpage and Facebook page to come in the near future, as well as more informational meetings.
The Grant County Herald Independent contributed to this article.
