Baum Ends 400-Mile Ride at Lake Superior, Calls for Federal Data Center Water Standards
Superior, WI — When congressional candidate Niina Baum finished her 400-mile bike tour of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District last month, she ended at the S.S. Meteor in Superior, on the shore of Lake Superior. She says the location was deliberate.
“You spend nine days riding through this district and you end up standing next to the largest body of fresh water on the planet,” Baum said. “According to the EPA, the Great Lakes hold twenty percent of the world’s surface fresh water. That is not an abstraction up here. That is the thing everything else depends on.”
Baum says the fight now unfolding in Wisconsin Rapids is a preview of what other communities in the district will face, and she is calling for a moratorium on new large-scale data center development until federal standards exist.
On Saturday, developers held a town hall at the Wisconsin Rapids Public Library to promote a project that would put roughly 1.2 million square feet of data center construction on the former paper mill site along the Wisconsin River. Former New York City mayor Eric Adams appeared on the developer’s behalf and was heckled throughout. “Like it or not, folks, data centers are going to be here,” Adams told the crowd, drawing shouts of “Not in Rapids” and “Put it in your backyard.”
Baum is the only candidate in the five-way Republican primary calling for a moratorium.
Wisconsin Rapids enacted an ordinance requiring a conditional use permit and asked for a pause to gather more information. The city planning commission is scheduled to take up land use and data centers next week.
“Wisconsin Rapids did the right thing. They slowed it down and demanded answers,” she said. “But a city of 18,000 should not have to hire outside counsel and go toe to toe with a national development firm because Washington cannot be bothered to write a rule. Federal standards would give every community the same floor to stand on.”
Baum points to Port Washington, on the Lake Michigan shore, as an example of what happens without them. There, according to reporting by Circle of Blue, the town agreed to give a developer daily access to 1.2 million gallons of municipal water drawn from the lake.
The energy side compounds it. That single Port Washington campus will require 1.3 gigawatts, more power than a million American homes use. Generating it takes water. The Port Washington Generating Station already draws 565,000 gallons of Lake Michigan water every minute. In Indiana, gas turbines and a coal plant serving one new Amazon data center are expected to consume nearly 7 billion gallons annually.
“A facility can report a small number for cooling and be telling the truth, because the water is being used somewhere else by the power plant keeping it running,” Baum said. “Federal standards should count the full footprint. Right now they count almost nothing.”
Baum grew up on a dairy farm in Price County and has spent nearly her entire life in the 7th District. Her July bike tour covered nine counties over nine days, ending in Superior. She has accepted no corporate PAC money, was the first candidate in the district to secure ballot access, and was recently endorsed by the Forward Party. The 7th Congressional District Republican caucus voted this year not to endorse in the primary.
Baum is running in the August 11th Republican primary for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.
Video of end of bike ride: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EeZYK6cqW/
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