Data centers are under construction in a number of Wisconsin communities — such as Port Washington, Beaver Dam and Mount Pleasant. Others are being considered, including in Rock County, in southern Wisconsin.
Residents of a community there are pushing for the adoption of policies they say would protect the environment and public health, before local leaders have the chance to vote on any data center proposals.
Data centers are crucial to everything online — from email, to banking, to using search engines.
But it’s the huge, hyperscale data centers that create controversy. They’ve been sprouting up in recent years, as big tech companies invest billions of dollars in artificial intelligence. The facilities require a lot of land, water and power.
And while proponents say the data centers will create jobs and fuel economies, there’s growing opposition.
Take the Town of Beloit. In March, residents there learned from a news reporter that a hyperscale data center might be coming to town.
“Thank you Dana Fulton from WKOW because she was the reporter who wrote the story,” Beloit resident Brittany Keyes says. “I don’t know if we would still yet know about it if it wasn’t for her reporting.”
WKOW had uncovered emails among Rock County and Town of Beloit leaders and the company Cambrin LLC. WKOW says the communications resulted in a “predevelopment agreement for a possible data center in the Town of Beloit.”
Brittany Keyes says people concerned about environmental and health impacts began mobilizing.
“The last three months have been busy. Within a week we had a community education gathering,” Keyes says.
Two hundred attended in-person and another 100 virtually. A group was formed, called Rock County Neighbors for Responsible Development.
On May 31, it submitted a formal request to Town of Beloit leaders, asking for an 18-month moratorium on considering large data center proposals, “Plus protective measures we’d like to see, to ensure are in place in the face of any data center proposal,” Keyes says.
The residents are asking for third-party air and water monitoring during and after data center construction. They also want the town to have comprehensive community benefits agreements with data centers, that would in part support area public schools.
And the group pushed to ban local officials from making deals behind closed doors. Keyes says it’s crucial that residents know what’s going on and can share their views before decisions are made.
On June 1, the Town of Beloit board unanimously approved a measure banning town staff from signing non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, for possible data centers without board approval.
After the vote, I talked to Town Administrator John Malizio, who says the move was his idea.
“I had told the board before, when all this broke, that I don’t believe in NDAs. I understand there’s a need for them in certain circumstances. In this particular case — some big project like this that impacts so many people in the community — it should be open, it should be discussed,” Malizio says.
Malizio has been town administrator since the beginning of this year. He says his predecessor signed a non-disclosure agreement with Cambrin LLC that lead to a pre-development agreement.
“So I was informed about it when he announced he was leaving,” he says.
Mazilio says the agreement involved discussion of a sale of more than 430 acres for a data center dubbed "Project Cornmaze." He says the town commissioned a water and sewer study that Cambrin LLC paid for.
In April, Malizio learned that the developer Panattoni had taken over the project.
He says no formal conversations have taken place with town leaders, so he still has lots of questions.
“How many gigawatts and how many buildings and how many square footage? Then we can put some numbers to what is the tax impact to the town, what’s going to be the water district, what’s going to be the sewerage — all those things that are important to everybody,” he says.
Malizio says ultimately, it’ll be up to the town board to decide whether to approve a data center proposal.
As for the slate of environmental protections and other measures concerned residents are seeking, Malizio says he shared the list with the town board and Town of Beloit plan commission.
It will be their decision as to whether to take them up at a future meeting.
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