(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin legal group is fighting against a transmission line being placed on a Saukville property to serve a new mega data center in Port Washington.
The Port Washington data center has been the subject of public backlash as the $8 billion data center is planned to use the same amount of electricity as the city of Los Angeles, becoming the largest energy user in Wisconsin history with Vantage asking for 1.3 gigawatts of energy to be available by 2027 and ultimately 3.5 gigawatts of power.
The data center is approved to be part of a tax increment district that exceeds the state’s 12% limit on the amount of taxable property in a municipality allowed to be part of a TID.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is arguing that American Transmission Co. does not have the right to use eminent domain to take the property of Tom and Mary Uttech because there are other options on where to build the transmission line or using on-site power generation and eminent domain should only be used as a “last resort,” WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber said in a statement.
Vebber argued that “even then, (it) should be used only when the public need is so absolute there are no alternatives. This is not such a case. We will do all we can to protect the Uttech family’s private property rights.”
The Uttech family has a 52-acre property that includes Tom Uttech’s artistic studio and WILL believes the transmission line will lead to “irreparable damage to the natural beauty and wildlife” there.
“This land is our home, and my wife and I have spent decades cultivating and caring for its natural beauty,” Uttech said in a statement. “As an artist, this land continues to be my inspiration for all that I do. My wife and I do not want to sell and certainly do not want this land stolen from us just to benefit a privately owned data center.”
WILL argues that the data center is a private company and does not fall under the “public use” stipulations in both the Fifth Amendment and Wisconsin Constitution.
“Many alternatives exist, from different and less impactful routes, to allowing the data center to generate power on site,” WILL wrote. “Taking land from our friends and neighbors to benefit private business is not why the eminent domain power exists.”
