An attorney read from a laptop propped atop a snowplow.
To his left was a Caterpillar street grader, and to his right, a dusty workbench. A disheveled American flag hung next to a red toolbox in the center of the impromptu stage.
Dozens of southwest Wisconsin residents recently forsook part of the local high school’s track-and-field meet so they could cast their votes inside the town of Cassville’s garage. The attorney had been retained by the town’s elected leaders to read the soon-to-be-newest regulation.
The unanimous outcome — 44 ballots in favor of banning data centers, none against — reflected a hostile backlash to unwelcome big tech incursions into rural spaces.
Residents instructed their town board to put a stop to the billion-dollar proposal by an anonymous developer after learning their community was on the short list.
The pastoral landscape — known for rolling bluffs that straddle the locks and dams of the nation’s upper Mississippi River — possesses a bountiful aquifer, a temperate climate and few land regulations.
The latest move against data centers
Cassville’s ordinance is the latest move by a Midwestern community seeking to protect the qualities that make life so appealing to people — and data centers.
Pushback over the power-hungry facilities that make the cloud run are occurring across the country, as companies expand in states like Mississippi and Tennessee.
Residents in Port Washington, Wisconsin, were the first in the nation to pass a referendum that would prevent their city from offering generous tax incentives without first obtaining voter approval.
And in Clayton County, Iowa, directly across the river from Cassville, officials are considering zoning, setback and size restrictions.
Cassville residents fear data centers will devalue their properties, contaminate their wells and increase their electric bills.
“This is the Driftless area for Christ’s sakes,” said John Hawn, who retired to the area several years ago. “I suppose they didn’t expect any problems coming into a small town.”
‘There’s no information’
The Cassville project has been shrouded in secrecy. That includes the proposed location and what company will use it, leaving residents to fill in the vacuum with a frenzy of social media engagement.
“I don’t know really what to think about it because there’s no information,” town Supervisor Scott Riedl said.
Ron Brisbois, executive director of the Grant County Economic Development Corp., has met with a developer but to date declined to identify the company that is scouting for locations so as not to jeopardize the project.
In an interview after Cassville’s vote, he said the town’s appeal is its proximity to electricity, specifically the high-voltage Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line that entered service in September 2024.
Brisbois estimated the data center would require 400 to 500 megawatts of power — a lot, even by the new transmission line’s standards.
But the town’s attorney, Eric Hagen, said if Cassville can make it inconvenient, the data center developer may look elsewhere. The company also is considering sites in Indiana and North Dakota.
“My read of the situation right now: They’re looking for the lowest-hanging fruit with the least amount of regulations,” Hagen said.
Cassville’s new ordinance prohibits data centers in the town for up to two years and prevents land use changes, such as constructing a residence on a farm field, without the town board’s approval. And the county cannot preempt local zoning authority in the town’s case, Hagen said.
“We can beat them to the punch.”
Data centers raise ire
Days after the town’s vote, Brisbois fielded questions from a concerned public at J&J’s Sandbar, a Cassville restaurant, over chicken and ham, mashed potatoes with gravy and macaroni salad.
He wonders whether the objections reflect data centers’ tarnished image more than concerns over actual water and power use. If a battery or farm equipment manufacturer were to move in and consume more of each, would residents even notice?
Brisbois said the developer has remained quiet for the past month, which he attributes to the lack of local tax incentives for the project rather than community unease.
“I’m looking forward to a bit quieter days,” he said, “where all I have to worry about with townships is housing and maybe an ag or a farm expansion.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
A metal gangway leads to the floating pumphouse used to harvest water for Public Wholesale Water Supply District 20 outside Sedan, Kan. A new analysis found agricultural states including Kansas have seen drinking water systems record thousands of instances of elevated nitrate, a potentially dangerous byproduct of farming. (Photo by Kevin Hardy/Stateline)
Nearly one-fifth of Americans relied on drinking water systems with elevated and potentially dangerous levels of nitrate in recent years, according to a new study released Thursday.
The nonprofit Environmental Working Group examined test data collected by water systems across the country between 2021 and 2023, the most recent data available.
Water systems serving more than 3 million people exceeded the federal safety limit of 10 milligrams per liter over the three years, the research and advocacy organization found.
The analysis also found that thousands of water systems serving more than 62 million people reported nitrate levels above 3 milligrams per liter at least once during those years, which indicates human-caused drinking-water contamination.
Researchers are increasingly questioning whether the federal threshold should be lowered as more studies find links between even low levels of nitrate consumption and cancer and birth defects. Federal law limits nitrate levels in drinking water because of its association with blue-baby syndrome.
Nitrate is a natural component of soil, but has become a growing problem for drinking water systems because of crop farming’s use of nitrogen fertilizers and runoff of nitrogen-rich manure from livestock operations.
States with big agricultural industries recorded more reports of elevated nitrate levels. In fact, the report found that 64% of all water systems that recorded nitrate levels at or above the legal limit were in just five states: California, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
But Anne Schechinger, the organization’s senior director of agriculture and climate research who authored the report, said the issue affects urban and rural areas alike.
“A lot of people have this idea that this issue is just a rural issue for small towns near farms. But we found with this analysis that that is not just the case,” she told Stateline. “Based on how watersheds work, you can live very far from a farm and still be drinking water contaminated with nitrate.”
The analysis relies on public records obtained from public drinking water systems in every state except New Hampshire, where data was not provided, she said. In addition to its report, the Environmental Working Group created a map showing community water systems with elevated nitrate levels across the country.
Elevated nitrate levels have befuddled water providers across the country for years. Not only are they expensive to remove from drinking water supplies, but nitrate levels can fluctuate with the seasons as heavy rains can quickly push remnants of fertilizer or manure into streams and rivers.
Iowa’s largest water provider last year asked residents to refrain from watering lawns, filling pools and washing cars as its nitrate removal system struggled to keep up with elevated levels.
Des Moines is home to one of the largest nitrate removal systems in the world, which costs about $16,000 per day to operate, officials said. Smaller communities that rely on groundwater have been forced to dig deeper wells, Schechinger said.
Climate change is further fueling the problem: Agriculture is a major driver of greenhouse gas emission. The heavy rainfalls and prolonged droughts from more extreme weather worsen nitrate runoff into lakes, rivers and groundwater.
“We know those climate conditions are going to make this problem worse,” Schechinger said. “And that’s likely to cost us all more and also (raise) more concerns for our health.”
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
April 22, 1970, was no ordinary day in the bustling city of St. Louis. On this first Earth Day, streets filled with rallies, and lecture halls were packed with attendees. Most famously, rows of students marched through the streets wearing gas masks, protesting air pollution.
Around that time, John E. Franz was brewing up something dark in the depths of Monsanto’s St. Louis lab: glyphosate, an herbicide since linked to widespread environmental harm, cancer concerns and more than 100,000 lawsuits.
While other countries have regulated or limited glyphosate production, the U.S. has largely ignored the problem. In February, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14387 to promote the production of glyphosate and security for its producers.
The U.S. is increasingly dependent on glyphosate, and its overuse is becoming a serious concern. Amid the many environmental issues competing for attention, glyphosate deserves a prominent place this Earth Day, especially in Wisconsin.
Why Wisconsin? Glyphosate levels in groundwater aren’t being consistently monitored in the state’s highest-risk areas — its CAFO counties.
From fields to faucets
Wisconsin farmers apply millions of pounds of glyphosate each year, primarily to fields growing soybeans and corn — the state’s two biggest crops. Those crops are used to feed animals at Wisconsin’s 293 concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.
After animals eat glyphosate-treated crops, the chemical can reemerge in their manure. This is a problem, considering that mismanagement of CAFO waste frequently leads to groundwater contamination.
Seems like something that should be setting off red flags, right?
Monitoring falls short in Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) oversees groundwater and surface water testing for agrichemicals. The agency monitors pesticides and agricultural runoff through a private well sampling program, a field-edge monitoring program and random well sampling conducted every five to 10 years.
However effective these programs may appear, a closer look at where Wisconsin’s CAFOs are located compared with where monitoring occurs reveals a stark mismatch.
The three counties with the most CAFOs — Manitowoc (25), Brown (22), Kewaunee (19) — are all located in the Northeast Lakeshore region, where none of DATCP’s 22 field-edge monitoring wells are located, according to a 2023 report, the most recent available. The state’s monitoring system misses areas at highest risk for aquifer contamination.
Unfortunately it gets worse. DATCP’s Targeted Sampling Program also does not cover the entire Northeast Lakeshore Watershed, and these sampling panels do not test for glyphosate or its byproducts, the agency’s most recent program report shows.
The solution? Advocacy
Glyphosate usage has increased 15-fold since the 1990s. It will continue to go unchecked if more research and monitoring aren’t conducted to track where this chemical ends up.
If you’re a private landowner with a well, write to DATCP and volunteer to have your well sampled.
Universities such as University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and UW-Green Bay also play a role. DATCP already partners with both on research. Contact leaders of their water-related programs.
Why glyphosate still matters
To be sure, glyphosate is not the only problematic agrichemical. But it is by far the most widely used herbicide in U.S. agriculture, and its scale alone warrants closer monitoring of its spread in aquifers.
Still not convinced? Consider the many other contaminants that can leach into groundwater from CAFO manure — including other agrichemicals, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals and bacteria. Glyphosate is just one of many reasons stronger groundwater monitoring is needed in this region.
We’re not asking for much.
Glyphosate well testing is relatively inexpensive and should not strain government resources. Progress will depend on public pressure: Concerned citizens must keep pushing until stronger monitoring is in place across all at-risk areas of this beautiful state we call home.
Allison Gilmeister is a graduate student at Yale University studying religion and ecology. She grew up in Appleton.
Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.
The filmmakers worked with a University of Minnesota ecohydrologist, Dr. Emily Fairfax, as a science expert, even naming a key character for her (Dr. Sam — for Samantha Emily Fairfax), per Minnesota Public Radio. She visited the studio several times and led a research trip to Colorado to help the team learn more about beavers and their habitat.
In that MPR story, Fairfax said Pixar did a good job showing how beavers can improve ecosystems with their dams.
“When you lose that beaver, you also lose the homes for the other animals, and I think that’s a message that not everybody really understands,” she told MPR. “If you trap a beaver out, if you remove its dam, you will take away a lot more than just the beaver from that ecosystem, whether you meant to or not.”
Researchers have identified Wisconsin as being among the top 10 states for biodiversity loss, largely due to climate change and animal overexploitation. But a vocal minority serving on a beaver advisory committee that is drafting recommendations for the state’s Department of Natural Resources believes it’s time for a change: Beavers should cease to be framed as a nuisance species and instead as an ecosystem engineer that creates wetlands. That can help reduce some of the worst effects of climate change: droughts, floods and fire.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wildlife services program lethally removes beavers in Wisconsin and other states throughout the Midwest. In Wisconsin, wildlife services staff trapped about 2,200 beavers in 2025 and removed more than 800 dams.
The majority of beaver committee members — mostly composed of state and federal employees and interest groups — support the status quo. Those who do not have criticized the committee as stacking the deck against people who would advocate for substantive changes in policy. This makes, they say, the outcome a seemingly foregone conclusion. Some committee members have said a survey released to gauge the public’s tolerance of the critters frames beavers as pests and fails to mention the effectiveness of coexistence methods.
The Pixar movie “Hoppers” depicts the benefits of beavers. (Courtesy of Disney)
As Wisconsin Watch previously reported, the state has an arduous and often expensive permitting process to install flow control devices that can lower water levels in beaver ponds or prevent the blockage of culverts. That can usher landowners toward lethal solutions, the use of which Wisconsin law liberally allows.
People may hunt or trap beavers and remove their dams on their property without obtaining a license or reporting their catch. In fact, there are risks to ignoring one’s beavers.
People who own or lease beaver-occupied land and don’t allow their neighbors to remove them are liable for damages. Additionally, if a beaver dam causes damage to a neighboring property, the injured party may enter the property where the dam lies and remove it without being charged with trespassing.
Committee members petitioned to have Fairfax address the group. She stressed beavers’ role as a “keystone” species, on whom many plants and animals depend.
“It is harder to coexist,” she said. “But in many cases, it is worth it.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
A homeowner in Wauwatosa can do exactly what public messaging asks: take shorter showers, time irrigation thoughtfully, fix leaks and otherwise reduce water use. Then the quarterly bill arrives, and the cost barely moves. The homeowner might jump to a dangerous conclusion: that conservation is symbolic, not economic.
It’s an understandable reaction to misaligned incentives.
Utilities need stable revenue to maintain infrastructure that does not shrink with short-term changes in household use. At the same time, households need bills that make conservation visibly and promptly worthwhile. If both are true, the issue is not whether residents are wrong to feel frustrated, but whether rate design effectively translates public goals into household-level incentives.
This tension — between conservation messaging and what bills actually show — points to a broader public accountability issue for utilities across Wisconsin.
Wauwatosa is a useful case study because the city publishes its bill components clearly enough to reveal this trade-off.
What the Wauwatosa bill structure shows
As published by Wauwatosa’s water utility, a residential bill combines multiple components across water, sewer and storm water. For common 5/8-inch and 3/4-inch meters, the city page currently lists:
A fixed quarterly water service charge: $20.00.
A fixed public fire protection charge: $15.99.
A fixed quarterly Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (regional sewer) connection charge: $16.41.
A fixed quarterly storm water charge (per equivalent residential unit): $35.63.
Taken together, that amounts to $88.03 per quarter in fixed charges before any usage-based costs, local sanitary flows or temporary surcharges are added. For many households, that fixed baseline stands out because it does not change with daily behavior.
The Wauwatosa webpage notes another key detail: Residential sewer charges are based on average water use from the previous winter quarter. That approach can make engineering sense for irrigation-heavy months, but it also means residents who cut back now may not immediately see those savings reflected in their sewer charges.
When customers see both that delay and a large fixed baseline, the takeaway is simple: “My effort doesn’t matter.”
That is the policy risk.
Why this perception matters beyond one city
This pattern extends beyond Wauwatosa to utility systems statewide.
The Wisconsin Public Service Commission describes rate setting as a balancing problem among cost recovery, financial stability, affordability and system sustainability. EPA guidance similarly explains why many utilities use fixed-plus variable charges: Fixed charges support pipes, treatment assets and financing obligations that exist regardless of short-term household demand.
So yes, a large fixed component is not automatically evidence of bad intent. Often it reflects the cost profile of infrastructure.
But even well-designed systems can produce a weak conservation signal.
EPA water finance resources note that some pricing structures are better than others at encouraging conservation. If a city publicly asks for conservation while bill design makes savings hard to notice, policy and pricing are misaligned where customers experience them: on the bill.
The accountability test
Can a typical resident estimate cost savings before taking action to reduce use?
If the answer is no, then the price signal is too opaque.
If customers must decode fixed charges, lagged sewer formulas and unclear unit rates to understand marginal savings, the bill functions more as a revenue tool than a behavior signal — preserving cash flow but weakening conservation and public trust.
Residents do not need a lecture about civic virtue. They need rate transparency and faster feedback.
What Wauwatosa could pilot
This does not require a simplistic “slash fixed fees” response. It requires clearer design and better signal delivery.
Publish a one-page “marginal savings” table for typical homes.The table should answer: “If I reduce use by 1, 3 or 5 CCF this quarter, what is the expected bill impact now and next quarter?” Include timing notes for winter-quarter sewer logic.
Add bill lines for “behavior-sensitive charges” and “system-fixed charges.” Split the bill into two subtotals so the customer can see immediately which share was behavior-driven and which paid for infrastructure.
Introduce a conservation dividend. If systemwide demand drops below peak projections and defers capacity costs, return part of those savings as a visible credit in the next cycle. Make conservation legible.
Run a transparent pilot on stronger conservation pricing bands. EPA and national guidance point to increasing-block rates as one way to strengthen conservation signals. Pilot carefully, publish distributional impacts and protect affordability with targeted credits.
Publish a trust metric: “conservation-to-bill responsiveness.” Track how often conservation leads to measurable bill changes within one cycle. If responsiveness is weak, publish a redesign plan.
The larger policy point
When homeowners conclude, “the city designed this to extract money no matter what,” leaders should not dismiss it but treat it as a warning sign in the system.
Most residents are not accusing utilities of villainy. They are describing an incentive mismatch.
If Wisconsin cities want durable conservation, they need bill designs that preserve financial integrity and reward action quickly enough for residents to feel the loop. Otherwise, we train households to stop caring, then blame them for not conserving.
Water policy fails when the math is defensible on paper but illegible at the kitchen table.
Michael V. Haley is a Wisconsin freelance writer focused on accountability commentary abouthow public systems affect household outcomes. His work translates municipal policy, utilitydesign and implementation choices into practical impacts for residents.
Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.
Microsoft data centers in Mount Pleasant in southeast Wisconsin are projected to use much more water annually than would fill four Olympic-size pools.
Water to operate the facilities, including for cooling, will be supplied by the city of Racine.
The first data center, described by Microsoft as “the world’s most powerful data center,” is expected to begin operation in 2026.
Racine projects that facility will use 2.81 million gallons of water (roughly four Olympic pools) in 2026.
But a second data center is also under construction and a 15-center expansion is planned.
Racine projects total water usage will be 8.44 million gallons annually (roughly 12 pools).
The projections don’t include water that will be needed to generate electricity to fuel the data centers.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated in 2024 that 92.5% of the water U.S. data centers used was to generate electricity, 7.5% for cooling.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Members of an ad hoc Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources committee are urging wildlife regulators to work with a national expert as they finalize recommendations to guide state beaver management policy for the next decade.
Researchers and conservationists serving on the advisory body — which is largely composed of DNR staff and government and tribal representatives — hope that including additional scientific expertise, and even a potential computer-guided aerial beaver dam mapping survey, could assist regulators at a time when climate change is beginning to significantly alter Wisconsin weather patterns and pose widespread ecological risks.
“We’re taking our species out faster than they can recover, and when we are overexploiting our trout, when we’re overexploiting animals, plants, habitats, that’s going to make us lose these species faster,” said University of Minnesota ecohydrology professor Emily Fairfax, who has helped review and fact-check several beaver management plans and recently spoke to the committee. “I don’t think we have time to wait — full stop.”
A shift would transform long-standing beaver policy that frames the critters as a nuisance species.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wildlife services program has removed beavers and their dams in Wisconsin since 1988 under contract with the state, along with local governments, railroad companies and Indigenous tribes.
At least five states across the Mississippi River basin and Great Lakes region contract with the federal wildlife services program for beaver removal, but Wisconsin stands out among states for the quantity of beavers and dams USDA employees clear, the millions of dollars Wisconsin has invested to do so and the state’s justification.
Current trout policy includes killing beavers
USDA killed roughly 23,500 beavers across 42 states in 2024, about 2,700 of which were in Wisconsin, ranking the state among the top five in the nation.
In Wisconsin, the agency focuses on abating transportation hazards, such as flooded roadways. But, perhaps most controversially, about a third of sites where USDA traps beavers are coldwater streams.
Wisconsin currently prioritizes maintaining free-flowing conditions on the state’s prized coldwater streams, partly to appeal to its “customers” and their fishing preferences.
Henry Nehls-Lowe, Southern Wisconsin Trout Unlimited board secretary, casts his fly-fishing line in Sixmile Branch, a Class 2 trout stream, Oct. 7, 2024, in Grant County, Wis. Federal trappers killed about 2,700 beavers in Wisconsin in 2024. About a third of those were in coldwater streams. Wisconsin prioritizes free-flowing conditions to benefit anglers. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
But the strategy has faced increasing scrutiny, even among anglers, who are divided over the issue. Some beaver advocates say the state agency charged with protecting and enhancing natural resources shouldn’t let commercial interests unduly guide its decisions.
In 2025, the agency trapped and cleared dams in more than 1,550 miles of coldwater streams — roughly the driving distance from Milwaukee to Salt Lake City, Utah. The DNR uses proceeds from annual trout fishing stamp sales to finance the annual undertaking.
At least two other states, Minnesota and Michigan, have employed the USDA for trout stream clearing, but at a significantly reduced scale.
The DNR doesn’t know the impacts of these policies on Wisconsin’s beaver population, as it ceased conducting aerial surveys in 2014. Agency staff, instead, estimate beaver numbers and harvest impacts using trapper surveys and voluntary reporting of annual take. Staff believe the population remains stable statewide or is even growing.
Conservationists are calling on the DNR to systematically survey the state’s beaver population. Without obtaining a reliable count, they say, it’s impossible to devise a science-based management plan. Even if beaver removal continued on trout streams, critics say the state could better estimate the population by having trappers register their beaver take, as the DNR requires for turkey, deer, bobcat and bear harvests.
Meanwhile, an expanding body of research is showcasing beavers’ ecosystem and economic benefits and the drawbacks of removal.
Beaver dams help limit flooding
When beavers remain on the landscape, they create wetlands, which mitigate climate change impacts like drought, wildfires and flooding. Problemsthought to be endemic to the American West are now creeping eastward.
Thunderstorms wreaked havoc in southeastern Wisconsin last summer, bringing more than 14 inches of rain to some parts of Milwaukee within 24 hours on Aug. 9-10. Roughly 2,000 homes sustained major damage or were destroyed in the ensuing floods, and the county now faces more than $22 million in public infrastructure repairs after being twice denied federal disaster assistance.
Beaver dams can dissipate torrents of water when the sky opens — even to the city’s benefit.
Using computer models, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers estimated that the Milwaukee River watershed could accommodate enough beaver colonies to reduce flood water volumes by 14% to 48%.
Wisconsin beaver policy understudied
But scientists face decades of institutional consensus in Wisconsin that beavers degrade stream habitat and threaten wild coldwater fisheries.
DNR fish biologists say that beavers warm water temperatures and plug coldwater streams with silt. When unobstructed, the water bodies, which tend to contain few fish species, flow fast and hard.
“Past studies have identified some positive but mostly negative effects of beavers on trout, and my research builds upon this,” DNR fisheries scientist Matthew Mitro told the beaver management committee. “The option for lethal removal (of) beavers is an important tool that should remain available for resource managers.”
Yet critics charge DNR biologists with managing streams for the primary benefit of one species by trapping out another, justifying the practice using research that hasn’t undergone scientific peer review.
Henry Nehls-Lowe, Southern Wisconsin Trout Unlimited board secretary, nets a brown trout he caught while fly-fishing in Big Spring Branch, a Class 1 trout stream, Oct. 7, 2024, in Grant County, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
A 2011 academic review of beaver-related research conducted in the Great Lakes region, which predated Mitro’s recent research, found that 72% of claims concerning beavers’ negative impacts are speculative and not backed by data, while the same held true for 49% of positive claims. The negative claims included the idea that beaver dams warm stream temperatures and block trout passage.
DNR biologists often note that academic literature largely has been conducted in the western United States and can’t be directly transplanted to Wisconsin’s comparatively flat landscape.
That is all the more reason to get off our haunches and wade into beaver ponds, Fairfax said.
“We have to follow that up by collecting our own data sets,” she said. “We have to publish them in peer-reviewed journals and get that scientific stamp of approval.”
Beaver trapping and natural predation are distinct from targeted eradication, Fairfax noted. The former can be sustainable, while stream-wide depopulation and dam removal can damage entire ecosystems.
It’s also possible that stream clearing prevents beavers from moving to parts of Wisconsin where they are wanted or where they could thrive with fewer conflicts.
Federal government assesses Wisconsin’s beaver dealings
The DNR beaver management plan’s update coincides with a new USDA environmental assessment of the potential impacts of its beaver and dam removal in Wisconsin.
A conservation organization founded by beaver management committee member Bob Boucher announced its intent to sue the federal agency to compel it to update its previous assessment, published more than a decade ago. Then Boucher threatened to sue the DNR after it wouldn’t release a draft of the new one, currently under review.
The 2013 assessment determined that USDA’s involvement in clearing streams and conflict areas did not significantly impact the beaver population. It estimated wildlife managers would only trap about 2,000 beavers annually, but the agency exceeded that figure within a few years.
The USDA recommends staying the course, using lethal and nonlethal methods. When analyzing alternatives, the agency concluded that other wildlife managers would continue trapping with or without federal involvement.
The USDA allocates some funding for the installation of flow control devices that can reduce the footprint of beaver ponds by lowering water levels. But nearly all beaver conflict sites the USDA handles in Wisconsin are managed through trapping. Levelers do have limited effectiveness in settings like high-flow streams or infrastructure-heavy floodplains.
A tree impacted by beaver activity, Oct. 25, 2024, in Alma Center, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Wildlife managers say that they need flexibility because no two beaver sites are identical.
“We’re not against beaver complexes,” DNR fisheries biologist Bradd Sims told committee members. “We’re not against ecosystem diversity, and I don’t know why people try to paint us that way. We’re an open-minded bureau that’s open to different management styles.”
Trout and beaver proponents do agree that climate change poses an existential threat to biodiversity. While the former group might view beavers as harmful to coldwater streams, the latter see their potential as a partner in creating resilient landscapes that accommodate not only fish, but also frogs, turtles, bugs, bats, birds and humans.
The committee’s next meeting is March 18 in Rothschild, Wisconsin. Ultimately, DNR staff will rewrite the current plan, release a draft for public comment and discussion at open houses, and present a revised document to the state’s natural resources board for ratification.
This story was produced in partnership with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network, of which Wisconsin Watch is a member. Sign up for Wisconsin Watch’s newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.
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As low-income households make tough decisions amid rising health care, food and utility costs, firewood banks are providing a community service to keep people warm through the cold winter months.
Organizations like the Alliance for Green Heat have helped serve the 2.3 million U.S. households that rely on firewood for heat, but the group has had to rebrand under the Trump administration, which placed a premium on harvesting timber from federal lands.
There are an estimated 250 firewood banks across the country. Resources are available to help start a firewood bank in regions that don’t have access to one.
When Denny Blodgett learned his northwest Wisconsin county intended to burn wood harvested during a road-widening project near his home, he thought it would be unthinkable for that fuel to go to waste.
As Blodgett recalls, he offered some of the harvested wood to an older man from his church, and word spread around his community of Danbury that he had firewood to give.
“And pretty soon, we’re helping 125 families,” said Blodgett, who founded Interfaith Caregivers’ Heat-A-Home program.
That was three decades ago.
Last year, volunteers delivered nearly 200 loads of split wood to local households.
And as the cost of living increases amid federal cuts to social safety net programs, struggling families increasingly face a winter of tough choices as they try to meet their basic needs.
There isn’t a clear definition for firewood banks, which have been around since at least the 1970s, but have roots in Native traditions since time immemorial. They can take the informal form of Good Samaritans delivering logs to neighbors to large take-what-you-need distribution sites operated by cities or Indigenous tribes.
But the common denominator to these networks of care is their low- or no-cost service to people who lack the means to purchase alternative forms of heat and process their own firewood. Often, both factors stem from the same issue, such as illness or aging.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated as of 2020 that 2.3 million households in the United States rely on firewood as their primary source of heating fuel.
But one of the great paradoxes of what researchers term “fuel poverty” is that those struggling to keep their homes warm in rural, often heavily forested areas lack ready access to wood.
“I’ve got 20 acres of oak and hardwood here and a chainsaw and a log splitter, but I’m pretty much unable to really do much with it,” said Danbury resident Peter Brask, 78, who struggles with neuropathy.“I just still feel embarrassed asking for help because I’ve been so self-sufficient all my life.”
Last year’s wood delivery from Interfaith was a “lifesaver” for getting through the winter, the retired IBM software specialist said.
Blodgett, a former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, purchases and accepts donated wood, delivered to a yard adjacent to his home. A processor cuts “cattywampus” piles of timber into smaller pieces, and volunteers split them into burnable portions.
The wood dries until it’s “seasoned.” The less moisture in a log, the cleaner and more efficiently it burns.
The Interfaith Caregivers of Burnett County firewood bank in Danbury, Wis., photographed Oct. 3, 2025, is one of about 250 across the country. (Bennet Goldstein / Wisconsin Watch)
The Interfaith Caregivers of Burnett County firewood bank, seen Oct. 3, 2025, in Danbury, Wis., assists about 125 families a year with home heating. (Bennet Goldstein / Wisconsin Watch)
Interfaith purchased two trailers a few years ago with money the group obtained from the Alliance for Green Heat, a nonprofit that advocates for the use of modern wood-burning heating systems.
Buoyed with money from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, it has issued more than $2 million in grants to firewood banks that help them purchase safety equipment, chainsaws and wood splitters, as well as smoke detectors for wood recipients.
Overlooking a renewable resource like wood at the potential cost to human health is unthinkable, said the organization’s founder John Ackerly, especially when so much potential firewood ends up in landfills — the “scraggly stuff” that lumber mills can’t offload. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated 12.2 million tons of wood ended up as municipal solid waste in 2018.
“Usually, firewood is not a very profitable thing to sell, very labor-intensive and very heavy,” Ackerly said.
Another opportunity presented by firewood banks is providing a local outlet that avoids spreading wood infested with invasive species. Banks also avert the dumping of wood sourced from storm-damaged trees, exacerbated by climate-change-magnified severe weather — winds and snow.
“We’re losing our power, our electricity in these storms all the time,” said Jessica Leahy, a University of Maine professor, who co-authored a guide to starting community wood banks. “It would be great to have everybody in the most carbon-neutral heating source for their house. That sounds great, but there are people burning their kitchen cabinets in order to stay warm.”
Now in its fourth year issuing grants with federal dollars, the Alliance for Green Heat had to rebrand after the Trump administration pushed for increased timber harvests on federal lands in the name of national economic security.
This year, firewood banks seeking grants must source wood from actively managed federal forests, a potential problem for the handful of statesthat lack them.
“Before, we really touted the program as serving ‘low-income populations’ with a ‘renewable, low-carbon fuel,’” Ackerly said. “We had to remove that language, but we were able to keep doing what we had been doing the same way.”
Researchers who mapped wood banks across the U.S. identified a second in Wisconsin — the Bear Ridge Firewood Bank, sponsored by the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians — and a handful in other Midwestern states, including Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota.
Clarisse Hart — director of outreach and education at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, and one of the researchers — said firewood banks often go by different names depending on the region: firewood assistance program, firewood for elders, firewood ministry, wood pantry and charity cut, to name a few.
Other exchanges happen behind the scenes, she said, often on private, community social media pages — making banks harder to identify.
Often, the operations depend on the commitment of volunteers.
“A lot of people want to give back, but they don’t know what to do,” said Ed Hultgren, who started an Ozark, Missouri, wood bank in 2009. “It doesn’t have to be wood ministry. You find a gap in your area and see if there’s something you can do to fill it.”
Wayne Kinning — a retired surgeon who volunteers with his Fenton , Michigan, Knights of Columbus council — is one of a dozen or so men from St. John the Evangelist parish who cut, split and sell low-cost firewood. The proceeds support local charities.
“We donate all our time and even our chainsaws,” he said. “That, of course, then gives a person a sense of meaning in their day and a sense of worth in their giving.”
Denny Blodgett, founder of a firewood bank project through Interfaith Caregivers of Burnett County, is seen Oct. 3, 2025, in Danbury, Wis. (Bennet Goldstein / Wisconsin Watch)
Among Blodgett’s helpers are a snowmobile club, several churches and a Jewish summer camp. Another dedicated volunteer — Wendy Truhler, 74, of Danbury — has assisted Blodgett for nearly two decades, since her spouse died.
“Listen, I helped my husband split for 30 years. I know how to lift and work a splitter and this and that,” she told Blodgett when she started. “I would rather be outside than glued to a little 12-inch computer screen.”
Blodgett delivers wood throughout the year, which takes the pressure off the winter rush.
He fills the extra time working on other Interfaith projects: constructing wheelchair ramps for families and running the Christmas for Kids program.
Last year, 335 children received toys and clothes from their wish lists. Families also get a $50 food card. And he makes sure they get another resource wood provides.
A decorated tree for Christmas.
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Hydrogen has the potential to be a climate-friendly fuel since it doesn’t release carbon dioxide when used as an energy source. Currently, however, most methods for producing hydrogen involve fossil fuels, making hydrogen less of a “green” fuel over its entire life cycle.
A new process developed by MIT engineers could significantly shrink the carbon footprint associated with making hydrogen.
Last year, the team reported that they could produce hydrogen gas by combining seawater, recycled soda cans, and caffeine. The question then was whether the benchtop process could be applied at an industrial scale, and at what environmental cost.
Now, the researchers have carried out a “cradle-to-grave” life cycle assessment, taking into account every step in the process at an industrial scale. For instance, the team calculated the carbon emissions associated with acquiring and processing aluminum, reacting it with seawater to produce hydrogen, and transporting the fuel to gas stations, where drivers could tap into hydrogen tanks to power engines or fuel cell cars. They found that, from end to end, the new process could generate a fraction of the carbon emissions that is associated with conventional hydrogen production.
In a study appearing today in Cell Reports Sustainability, the team reports that for every kilogram of hydrogen produced, the process would generate 1.45 kilograms of carbon dioxide over its entire life cycle. In comparison, fossil-fuel-based processes emit 11 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of hydrogen generated.
The low-carbon footprint is on par with other proposed “green hydrogen” technologies, such as those powered by solar and wind energy.
“We’re in the ballpark of green hydrogen,” says lead author Aly Kombargi PhD ’25, who graduated this spring from MIT with a doctorate in mechanical engineering. “This work highlights aluminum’s potential as a clean energy source and offers a scalable pathway for low-emission hydrogen deployment in transportation and remote energy systems.”
The study’s MIT co-authors are Brooke Bao, Enoch Ellis, and professor of mechanical engineering Douglas Hart.
Gas bubble
Dropping an aluminum can in water won’t normally cause much of a chemical reaction. That’s because when aluminum is exposed to oxygen, it instantly forms a shield-like layer. Without this layer, aluminum exists in its pure form and can readily react when mixed with water. The reaction that occurs involves aluminum atoms that efficiently break up molecules of water, producing aluminum oxide and pure hydrogen. And it doesn’t take much of the metal to bubble up a significant amount of the gas.
“One of the main benefits of using aluminum is the energy density per unit volume,” Kombargi says. “With a very small amount of aluminum fuel, you can conceivably supply much of the power for a hydrogen-fueled vehicle.”
Last year, he and Hart developed a recipe for aluminum-based hydrogen production. They found they could puncture aluminum’s natural shield by treating it with a small amount of gallium-indium, which is a rare-metal alloy that effectively scrubs aluminum into its pure form. The researchers then mixed pellets of pure aluminum with seawater and observed that the reaction produced pure hydrogen. What’s more, the salt in the water helped to precipitate gallium-indium, which the team could subsequently recover and reuse to generate more hydrogen, in a cost-saving, sustainable cycle.
“We were explaining the science of this process in conferences, and the questions we would get were, ‘How much does this cost?’ and, ‘What’s its carbon footprint?’” Kombargi says. “So we wanted to look at the process in a comprehensive way.”
A sustainable cycle
For their new study, Kombargi and his colleagues carried out a life cycle assessment to estimate the environmental impact of aluminum-based hydrogen production, at every step of the process, from sourcing the aluminum to transporting the hydrogen after production. They set out to calculate the amount of carbon associated with generating 1 kilogram of hydrogen — an amount that they chose as a practical, consumer-level illustration.
“With a hydrogen fuel cell car using 1 kilogram of hydrogen, you can go between 60 to 100 kilometers, depending on the efficiency of the fuel cell,” Kombargi notes.
They performed the analysis using Earthster — an online life cycle assessment tool that draws data from a large repository of products and processes and their associated carbon emissions. The team considered a number of scenarios to produce hydrogen using aluminum, from starting with “primary” aluminum mined from the Earth, versus “secondary” aluminum that is recycled from soda cans and other products, and using various methods to transport the aluminum and hydrogen.
After running life cycle assessments for about a dozen scenarios, the team identified one scenario with the lowest carbon footprint. This scenario centers on recycled aluminum — a source that saves a significant amount of emissions compared with mining aluminum — and seawater — a natural resource that also saves money by recovering gallium-indium. They found that this scenario, from start to finish, would generate about 1.45 kilograms of carbon dioxide for every kilogram of hydrogen produced. The cost of the fuel produced, they calculated, would be about $9 per kilogram, which is comparable to the price of hydrogen that would be generated with other green technologies such as wind and solar energy.
The researchers envision that if the low-carbon process were ramped up to a commercial scale, it would look something like this: The production chain would start with scrap aluminum sourced from a recycling center. The aluminum would be shredded into pellets and treated with gallium-indium. Then, drivers could transport the pretreated pellets as aluminum “fuel,” rather than directly transporting hydrogen, which is potentially volatile. The pellets would be transported to a fuel station that ideally would be situated near a source of seawater, which could then be mixed with the aluminum, on demand, to produce hydrogen. A consumer could then directly pump the gas into a car with either an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell.
The entire process does produce an aluminum-based byproduct, boehmite, which is a mineral that is commonly used in fabricating semiconductors, electronic elements, and a number of industrial products. Kombargi says that if this byproduct were recovered after hydrogen production, it could be sold to manufacturers, further bringing down the cost of the process as a whole.
“There are a lot of things to consider,” Kombargi says. “But the process works, which is the most exciting part. And we show that it can be environmentally sustainable.”
The group is continuing to develop the process. They recently designed a small reactor, about the size of a water bottle, that takes in aluminum pellets and seawater to generate hydrogen, enough to power an electric bike for several hours. They previously demonstrated that the process can produce enough hydrogen to fuel a small car. The team is also exploring underwater applications, and are designing a hydrogen reactor that would take in surrounding seawater to power a small boat or underwater vehicle.
This research was supported, in part, by the MIT Portugal Program.
MIT engineers have developed a new aluminum-based process to produce hydrogen gas, that they are testing on a variety of applications, including an aluminum-powered electric vehicle, pictured here.
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