Power lines for huge data center spark fears in town

A crowd of people packed the Lepanto Banquet Hall at the Holiday Inn and Express Suites in Port Washington last week, many of them expressing concerns about the large power lines that American Transmission Co. plans to erect to bring power to the site of a proposed data center.

Their concerns ranged from the aesthetics of lines suspended on poles as tall as 175 feet through what is now a bucolic landscape to the potential for stray voltage and the noise these lines will bring to the countryside.

“Nobody wants this,” Angela Thill told a representative of ATC. “Why do we need this AI company in the Town of Port Washington. It’s a waste of good farmland.

“I’ve seen stray voltage and how it affects dairy farmers. This electricity can take out these farms with one wrong move.

“I don’t want to look out my front door and see this big, ugly power line. My neighbor has kids — I don’t want them around this. I have animals, and I don’t want them around this.”

Town Chairman Mike Didier said the people he spoke to weren’t in favor of the proposed data center that’s spurring the power line proposal.

“I think everybody was like, ‘No,’” he said. “But they (ATC) are not asking for permission. They’re looking for the best route for the power lines.”

Even as plans move forward to bring power to the site of the data center, city officials are working to prepare for the project, with the Plan Commission expected to consider a zoning code to govern these facilities when it meets at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 20.

Mayor Ted Neitzke said Tuesday the proposed code is sweeping and addresses many of the concerns town residents have expressed about the data center.

“They (city staff members) took everything we asked for and put it in there,” Neitzke said, noting the proposed zoning code includes requirements for light and sound mitigation, berms, a strong forestry plan and ways to visually conceal the center.

“We’ll beef it up in the developer’s agreement,” he added.

ATC recently 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, where Cloverleaf Infrastructure has proposed building a massive data center that would require a gigawatt of power.

The transmission company outlined six potential routes for the line, which, depending on the route that’s selected, would start in either the Town of Fredonia or town of Saukville and head east.

While the routes travel primarily through the Town of Port, one option shows the lines heading east on Dixie Road, the dividing line between the towns of Port and Belgium.

ATC has said it will select two potential routes for the lines and submit them to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission for consideration this summer. The PSC is expected to decide which route will be used by fall 2026, according to information disseminated at the meeting, with construction in 2027.

Power for the data center is expected to be provided by We Energies. When asked  by Ozaukee Press Tuesday whether the electricity needed is currently available and whether it would be generated using fossil fuels or renewable sources, spokesman Brendan Conway responded with a written statement that read, “As the project moves forward, We Energies and ATC are committed to adding capacity and infrastructure to serve this site and to do so with significant use of sustainable power sources.

“The company that builds the data center will be responsible for the cost of infrastructure specifically built to serve the site and will pay for the power it uses.”

The data center would be built on 2,000 acres of land currently in the Town of Port that would be annexed to the city.

Neitzke said Tuesday he expects that landowners will begin to petition for annexation to the city in a month or two, and after that discussion on the developer’s agreement will likely begin.

“In the next 12 or 16 weeks, it’s going to move pretty quickly,” he predicted. “We will be busy through August with this.”