Engineering a Sustainable Future: Preserving Our Waters for the Future

Sustainable development means meeting current human needs while preserving natural ecosystems for future generations. Can it be done is the major question. Can we preserve the Red Cedar Basin for future generations? Today, we know more about the real costs of hyperscale data centers. Education is key to fighting back against these big tech giants that want to fleece the average American by building data centers in our beloved rural community.

Human populations have exploded over the last century because the Industrial Revolution made life easier for most Americans.

During the American Industrial Revolution, millions of people left rural farms for factory jobs in urban areas. Driven by agricultural mechanization—which reduced the need for farm labor—and the promise of steady wages, this shift transformed the U.S. from a rural, agricultural society into an urban, industrialized one. Source: National Library of Medicine https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2760060/

The key to this revolution was machines. Machines did the work fast and with fewer workers.

Spring forward some two centuries, and life looks very different. Life is industrialized to the point that it is all automated. Flip a switch, and you make food, get light, and drive to a store. I’ll ask this question again: Sustainable development means meeting current human needs while preserving natural ecosystems for future generations. Can it be done?

The summer of 2025 was a wake-up call for many Menomonites. The $1.6 billion data center proposal for Menomonie, WI, championed by an anonymous entity called Balloonist LLC, was halted in late 2025 following massive community backlash. Many area residents mobilized and fought back.

Residence became aware of the financial, social, and environmental costs of data centers and said no!

According to the Environmental Energy and Study Institute (EESI), “an average hyperscale data center consumes between 1 to 5 million gallons of water per day. This massive volume—primarily used in evaporative cooling systems to prevent servers from overheating—is roughly equivalent to the daily water usage of a city of 10,000 to 50,000 residents.”

My question is this: Do we have enough water to support a hyperscale data center like the 1.6 billion one proposed for Menomonie during the Knacck administration?

According to Menomonie City/utilities, “No, the city of Menomonie could not currently support a daily water draw of 1 to 5 million gallons without major infrastructure upgrades or expansions. This volume is roughly equivalent to doubling or tripling the city’s entire current municipal water footprint.”
According to Menomonie City/utilities, “approaching the 5-million-gallon mark would max out or completely exceed the maximum pumping capacity. Consistently drawing 1 to 5 million gallons per day would not leave enough reserve capacity to safely cover typical municipal household use, seasonal irrigation, and fire hydrant flow.”

Today, we know more about the real costs of hyperscale data centers. Education is key to fighting back against these big tech giants that want to fleece the average American by building data centers in our beloved rural community. We appreciate the current mayoral administration’s experience in environmental engineering and trust that they will thoroughly investigate the costs. Now is the time to lay down a foundation to protect our precious waterways.

Because all water is connected, protecting our waterways, lakes, and oceans is an absolutely foundational pillar of this goal; Sustainable development means meeting current human needs while preserving natural ecosystems for future generations. Directly supporting public health, biodiversity, and community resilience comes down to protecting the Red Cedar Basin.

“It is a fascinating and provocative thought that a body of water deserves to be considered as an organism in its own right.”-Lyall Watson, Supernature

We will be working on several educational stories and articles, including interviews with city leaders and area scientists. Rick is working on a piece about the Red Cedar Basin, and Jan and I will be talking with the city about rain gardens.

Jan and I took a drive along the Red Cedar River. The following video is of the Russian Slough, Colfax, Wisconsin.