By Tom Stolp, Restoring Lands Executive Director
Wisconsin communities have been thrust into fast-paced, often behind-the-scenes negotiations regarding hyperscale data centers and their required energy infrastructure when we really need to have a frank conversation about this emergent sector and its impacts on our communities.
The closest we’ve come to a frank conversation is now hurriedly unfolding via a highly technical evaluation at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC), which is reviewing a proposed 123-mile high-voltage transmission line by American Transmission Company to serve the Port Washington data center.
If approved, the project would affect hundreds of acres of high-quality natural areas—lands protected, restored, and carefully stewarded over decades. These places support biodiversity, improve water quality, and provide meaningful access to nature. Their loss and fragmentation would be significant.
Based on American Transmission Company’s application, there is little evidence that permanently conserved lands, wildlife habitat, or conservation data were central to route selection.
To defend the integrity of these lands and ensure the PSC relies on the best available science, Restoring Lands (formerly Ozaukee Washington Land Trust) has formally intervened in the proceeding. We have engaged legal counsel, retained PhD-level scientists, and conducted fieldwork so these lands that you’ve helped us preserve for future generations are treated with the seriousness the law—and science-based decision-making—require.
As a regional voice for a wise balance of development and conservation since 1992, we want to ensure we’re at the table for negotiations and not on the menu, as the saying goes.
A final decision on transmission routes is expected in late fall 2026. In the meantime, one aspect of process centers on the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which is intended to inform decision-makers before choices are made.
Unlike ATC, the public agencies who prepared the draft EIS proactively identified the conserved lands that may be affected by the transmission line. They also acknowledged protections that are built in to protect conserved lands and limitations on development. Kudos to the PSC and DNR for their work.
While we appreciate the diligence of public agencies in preparing the EIS, key aspects of the Draft EIS nonetheless understate the scale and magnitude of impacts—especially along the Southern Preferred and Preferred Contingent routes advocated by American Transmission Company.
Too often, the EIS describes impacts as things that “may” happen, when many WILL happen if the project proceeds.
Clearing a 150-foot-wide corridor through forest WILL fragment ecosystems. Installing transmission towers approaching the height of the Statue of Liberty WILL permanently alter rural landscapes. These are not possibilities—they are outcomes.
This distinction matters because the routes cut through some of the largest remaining intact and permanently conserved natural areas in southeastern Wisconsin. These are not interchangeable acres. Forests and forested wetlands, once cleared, do not return to their prior condition.
The EIS also indicates mitigation is available, but not all mitigation will work. For example, the EIS suggests forested wetlands could be “remediated” into open systems. Converting forest into open systems is not “remediation.” Once trees are removed, invasive species often take hold, hydrology changes, and unique habitat is lost.
Some impacts cannot be mitigated at all.
Fragmentation affects sensitive wildlife species—from cerulean warblers to spotted salamanders to bobcats—that depend on large, unbroken habitats. The draft EIS focuses on avoiding direct “take” or actions that will directly result in death of wildlife, but gives insufficient weight to habitat loss, the primary driver of species decline.
The human impact also deserves greater attention. Lands such as Riverbend and County Line Preserves are open for hiking, hunting, birdwatching, and quiet recreation. Many are protected through conservation easements and public programs like the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. These values are not incidental—they are the reason these lands were protected.
The EIS notes that impacts to endangered species are “harder to compare” between routes. It also fails to discuss future phases of the project that even ATC admits may be forthcoming, as cumulative impacts. Where such uncertainty exists, the answer should be more study, not less clarity.
There is time for that study—at least for this project. The final EIS is due in July and must take into account the concerns addressed by comments from Restoring Lands and others. The PSC will also take testimony from parties to the case like Restoring Lands, as well as citizens via public comment, later this summer and fall, before making its final decision.
While state agencies are empowered to reject the ATC project if it fails to meet required criteria, they shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel of wilderness inventory and protection with every new data center-related development. As this case illustrates, this kind of piecemeal review risks missing issues and the full magnitude of impacts.
We offer two recommended reforms to ensure at least a baseline level of protection for our community’s conservation values going forward:
First, Wisconsin should follow Pennsylvania’s lead. In 2018, Act 45 strengthened that state’s Eminent Domain Code by requiring courts to determine that no reasonable alternative exists before conserved land can be taken. Wisconsin should similarly treat conserved lands as a last resort—not as open space awaiting development.
Second, to mitigate the loss of habitat and preserve rural character and outdoor recreation traditions, any conversion of natural or agricultural land should be offset by permanently conserving acreage of equal or greater conservation value.
Such reforms, whether legislative, regulatory, or voluntary, would better ensure community-informed decisions that acknowledge permanent impacts and account for cumulative effects, especially amid uncertainty about what comes next.
For more information, please visit www.restoringlands.org/atc-updates
Photos of County Line Preserve Purple and Yellow Irises, Cedar grove, and the pond.