Port data center complex to deliver a blow to farming

The impact of a proposed data center campus in the Town of Port Washington will have a major impact on the local farm community, one local farmer said this week.

Of the nearly 2,000 acres to be annexed to the City of Port Washington, almost 1,500 acres of it, constituting 3.5% of all the farmland in Ozaukee County, is some of the county’s finest.

And its loss will probably mean the cost of farmland in Ozaukee County will go up for everyone, limiting other farmers’ ability to grow, Fredonia dairy farmer Mike Paulus said.

“There aren’t a whole lot of cows in that area. Most of it is going for cash grain,” Paulus said. “It takes that farmland out of production and escalates all the land values around it.”

That means less feed grown locally and more driving for farmers like him who need it, he said.

“Are we going to be able to buy farmland around that as we continue to grow and have a place to spread the manure? (The land) won’t be affordable,” said Paulus, who has 1,750 cows and owns or rents about 2,500 acres, some of it five miles from his home.

“We’ll have to go farther and farther for land and when I start traveling farther on the road my liability and costs just get bigger. We have never made a dime driving down the road.”

Of the 1,890 acres in the planned development, 1,492 of it is designated mixed agriculture, constituting about 3.5% of the all the cultivated farmland in the county, according to the county Planning Department.

That land was reviewed as part of the county’s Land Evaluation and Site Assessment, or LESA, study for farmland several years ago.   

“Of that percentage in the LESA study area, about 93% of the acreage scored above 6.4, which was the mean and median (score), indicating good quality farmland,” county Planning and Parks Director Andrew Struck said.

Of the other land within the data center development, 435 acres is zoned business/industrial park and 38 acres is industrial.

Another concern of Paulus’ is the power  needed to supply the data center.

“We have not sat down with the (American Transmission Co.) about where those poles are going to be. None of those issues have been settled,” he said.

But it appears lines will be going across his land.

“We’re going to have a mile of poles on our farm,” he said.

That means the possibility of more stray voltage and static electricity, which research shows can affect cows’ health and milk production.

“We have electric lines (on his farmland) now. Some days the static electricity is unbelievable,” Paulus said. “The lines are buzzing. You can feel it. We keep our cows away from the lines as much as possible.”

In February, ATC sent a letter to homeowners who could be affected by the company’s plans to build a new substation and double-circuit 345,000-volt power line from just east of Highway 57 to an area near the intersection of Lake Drive and Highland Drive in the Town of Port Washington.

ATC officials have said they anticipate filing an application for the power line to the Public Service Commission this summer, showing two “preferred” routes.

The PSC will select which route to use.

It’s estimated that the data center complex could require 3.5 gigawatts of energy. One gigawatt is enough to supply power to 750,000 homes.

A recently released concept plan for the data center complex shows 11 data center buildings, five substations and three office buildings on about 1,600 acres.

The Port Washington Common Council last week unanimously approved the creation of a technology campus zoning district to facilitate the proposed data center complex.

In addition to the data center buildings and substations, the plan calls for a utility plant and areas for future development, as well as new roads and three storm water detention ponds.

The plan is a typical footprint for a data center campus and will be updated once an end user for the complex is identified, officials say.

The complex could use as much as 1 million gallons of water a day.

City officials have said the city’s water plant is operating at less than half its capacity and engineers are looking at whether it could supply that amount.

The water plant has a capacity of four million gallons a day. On average it produces 1.3 million gallons a day and on peak days a little more than two million gallons.

The complex could create 50 to 100 jobs per building, officials say.

The city Plan Commission last week recommended annexing 562.4 acres of land for the first phase of the project as well as measures to amend the city’s comprehensive plan and zoning map to allow for the data center campus.

The city has also applied for a change to its sanitary sewer district to include the entire data center site.