CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – The first thing you see when you drive into Wisconsin Rapids on Route 13 is an abandoned, partially collapsed, burnt out industrial building. It’s the old, empty Verso Paper Mill, and it’s a horrible ‘welcome to Wisconsin Rapids’ look.
There’s a proposal for a data center on the site. It is still more rumor than fact. A developer has been in contact with the city. Formal plans for the site have not yet been submitted.
In the current political environment, getting a data center approved is impossible. Any project that requires any type of public approval is a no-go. Elected officials who support a data center would be voted out of office or recalled.
Tonight in Wisconsin Rapids a group calling itself the South Wood County Neighbors for Responsible Development is holding a community forum. They’re not an impartial group. They’re opposed to a data center. They’ve invited speakers who will tell residents horror stories about energy usage, water usage, and other environmental nightmares. Of course, these things are unknowns. No one has even seen the proposal for Wisconsin Rapids.
My question for these community activists is this: what kind of data center could you support? If the data center comes with its own power source, and, hypothetically is air cooled instead of water cooled, would it be okay? The data center brings with it jobs – which were lost when the mill was closed – and would probably become the biggest taxpayer in town. Certainly those are good things?
Or is this project dead before it’s even proposed?
Will the first view of Wisconsin Rapids be a crumbling hulk of an old building?
Chris Conley
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