EVA | Environmental Vigilance Alliance is a public-interest advocacy project created to help communities understand, question, and respond to the rapid expansion of data centers, energy infrastructure, and industrial development across Wisconsin.

EVA began with a local concern: a proposed energy project near homes, farmland, schools, wildlife areas, and groundwater resources in Walworth County. But the deeper issue quickly became much larger than one project.

Across Wisconsin, new data centers, power plants, transmission lines, battery storage facilities, and related infrastructure are being proposed at a pace that many residents do not yet fully understand. These projects are often discussed in terms of economic development, energy demand, and technological progress. But communities also deserve clear answers about cumulative environmental impacts, water use, air quality, public health, land use, agricultural preservation, wildlife habitat, noise, safety, and long-term quality of life.

EVA exists because these questions should not be an afterthought.

Our Purpose

EVA’s purpose is to help create a public record, raise community awareness, and advocate for greater transparency, accountability, and environmental review before Wisconsin commits to large-scale infrastructure decisions that may shape our communities for generations.

We believe residents have the right to ask:

What is being built?

Why is it needed?

Who benefits?

Who carries the risk?

How will multiple projects affect the same region over time?

What happens to our water, farmland, wildlife, schools, neighborhoods, and rural communities when development decisions are considered one project at a time instead of as part of a larger statewide pattern?

Why Environmental Vigilance Matters

Environmental harm does not always happen all at once. Sometimes it happens through accumulation.

One project may seem manageable on paper. But many projects layered across the same aquifers, watersheds, transmission corridors, rural roads, agricultural lands, and residential communities can create impacts that are much harder to measure — and much harder to reverse.

That is why EVA is calling for stronger cumulative-impact review, meaningful public participation, and a more cautious approach to approving data center and energy infrastructure projects until Wisconsin residents have a clearer understanding of the full environmental, public health, and community costs.

What EVA Advocates For

EVA supports:

• A statewide pause or moratorium on new data center and related energy infrastructure approvals until cumulative impacts are fully assessed.

• Transparent public access to project information, timelines, maps, environmental studies, and agency decisions.

• Stronger review of impacts to groundwater, aquifers, wetlands, wildlife habitat, farmland, air quality, noise, and nearby homes and schools.

• Greater consideration of public health, children, rural residents, farmers, and future generations.

• Community-centered decision-making that does not treat local residents as obstacles to development.

• A broader conversation about whether Wisconsin’s land, water, and energy systems should be reshaped to meet the demands of artificial intelligence and industrial-scale digital infrastructure.

EVA is a Community Resource

EVA is not a corporation, political party, or formal nonprofit organization. It is a civic advocacy effort built from research, public records, community concern, and the belief that ordinary residents have a right to understand what is happening where they live.

This site gathers information, letters, public comments, maps, project trackers, research notes, and calls to action so residents, local officials, journalists, nonprofit organizations, and concerned citizens can see the bigger picture.

EVA is especially focused on Wisconsin, but the questions being raised here are part of a much larger national conversation: Who decides what kind of infrastructure gets built, where it goes, and how much environmental risk communities are expected to absorb in the name of progress?

Our Position

EVA is not opposed to technology, energy reliability, or economic development.

But we are opposed to rushing major infrastructure decisions without adequate public understanding, cumulative environmental review, and community consent.

Progress should not require sacrificing groundwater, farmland, biodiversity, public health, or the peace and safety of rural and small-town communities.

Wisconsin’s future should be planned with care.