Data center power line foes gird for PSC battle

Area residents, organizations and municipalities are gearing up to fight American Transmission Co. over the routes it has recommended using to bring electricity to the Vantage Data Centers’ Lighthouse Campus in Port Washington.

The Town of Saukville, Restoring Lands — the former Ozaukee Washington Land Trust — and the Responsible Energy Alliance — a coalition of Saukville, Trenton, Fredonia and Farmington residents — are among those opposing ATC’s recommendation that the electrical lines be routed through either the Town of Fredonia or Town of Saukville.

Instead, they say, the lines should be placed along the route of existing power lines.

They are being joined in their fight by the Port Washington Common Council, Mayor Ted Neitzke and even Vantage.

“We’re working closely with ATC on it,” Tracye Herrington, Vantage’s vice president of new site development in North America, told the Port Common Council Tuesday. “Our hope is the commission selects this alternate route after seeing all the parties intervening.”

Those parties, she said, include Vantage, which plans to apply to formally intervene in the case, which gives it the right to give testimony before the PSC as it considers which route the power lines will follow.

The groups are gearing up now because ATC’s application for the power lines was submitted on Nov. 14 and deemed complete by the Public Service Commission on Dec. 15, a move that ATC spokesman Scott Reigstad said starts the 180-day review period.

ATC initially submitted an application to the PSC on Sept. 30, but it was deemed incomplete on Oct. 28, requiring a resubmission.

The company has recommended two routes for the lines — the so-called preferred route, which would traverse the Town of Saukville, and the preferred alternative route, which would go through the Town of Fredonia.

It doesn’t recommend the so-called alternate route, which would largely follow existing power lines.

Restoring Lands Executive Director Tom Stolp said his group is preparing for a fight to ensure the lands it has restored and is protecting remain in their natural state. 

“The route ATC is advancing would go through less residential areas but more natural areas,” he said. “We’re looking as a community at the PSC to be thoughtful and not rush this decision.”

Restoring Lands has filed to intervene in the case, Stolp said, and is working with an attorney as it continues its mission to protect these precious resources.

“This makes us party to the case,” he said. “It’s a very costly, robust process. But this is protected land forever, and that means forever — not until someone wants to put up 180-foot-tall transmission lines across it.”

He noted that each of the transmission towers is taller than the Statue of Liberty “from toe to torch,” adding that a line of these towers goes against everything Restoring Lands stands for.

Stolp said the cost difference between the recommended routes and the existing one is about $200 million. 

Restoring  Lands is funding its efforts through its maintenance reserves, Stolp said, adding the organization believes the cost may be “north of six figures.”

That money, he said, will go to such things as attorney fees and expert testimony. 

“We’d much prefer to be spending the money on building trails, restoring habitat for wildlife and on new acquisitions,” Stolp said. “But we can’t be talking about new acquisitions if we can’t maintain the integrity of the lands we have.”

Town of Saukville Chairman Kevin Kimmes said he will be filing for intervenor status in the coming week, noting ATC’s recommended routes are contrary to the town’s long-term plans.

“I understand the power lines have to go somewhere,” he said, but the preferred route would go along areas where the dairy farms the town is encouraging are located. 

In fact, he said, the town’s long-term plan calls for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs, to be part of the community.

“We have a comprehensive plan. ATC is throwing that to the wind,” Kimmes said. “It has been well-documented these large power lines can have extreme effects on dairy farms.

“If they were to pick an alignment that doesn’t affect our CAFOs, I would be more quiet about it. But this is a clear-cut thing in my mind.”

Patti Plough of the Responsible Energy Alliance concurred, noting she and her husband own property near the existing route and wouldn’t object to that pathway being used.

“They have a pre-existing corridor they could use. There’s no reason to go through and destroy people’s property, mesic forests, the Kinnamon swamp,” she said. “There are so many people who own their property here, who retired to this beautiful paradise, and now someone’s going to plow through it with 200-foot power lines.

“I’m fighting this because it’s just wrong on every level. It’s not right. Why would you even think this is OK?”

There are so many reasons to oppose ATC’s proposed routes, she said — the disruption of natural areas, habitat, historical communities and Native American sites and the impact on people’s lives, as well as the fact it will lower property values. 

“For some people, this is just devastating what it would do to them,” Plough said.

The fight, she said, has “taken over our lives.”

Right now, she said, the Responsible Energy Alliance is researching environmental impacts on both the preferred and preferred contingent routes, since its attorney believes the PSC will look for input on that issue when it takes public comments. It is also working to line up legislators and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, the electric grid operator for the central United States to weigh in.

In addition, it’s encouraging municipalities along the routes to seek intervenor status, she said.

And, Plough said, the group is also working to raise the needed funds to pay for its fight.

“We’re all chipping in to pay for this,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll have the victory soon.”

The fact Vantage is weighing in on the side of so many groups is heartening, Plough said.

“This is a significant step,” she said

But Stolp warned that even with the company’s help, things may not go the way they want.

“It is up to ATC and the PSC,” he said. “It’s still a live grenade.”