{"id":56410,"date":"2026-07-24T13:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/56410\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T13:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:52:10","slug":"paris-gas-plant-proposal-overwhelmingly-opposed-by-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/56410\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris gas plant proposal overwhelmingly opposed by residents"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS, Wis. \u2014 Residents in the town of Paris spoke out overwhelmingly against the proposed Red Oak Ridge Energy Center, while members of local unions supported it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an over 1,100 megawatt natural gas power generation facility that would serve as a backup generator for the area\u2019s energy grid.<\/p>\n

The Public Service Commission held its final two public hearings on the proposal on Thursday.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Residents in the town of Paris spoke out overwhelmingly against the proposed Red Oak Ridge Energy Center, while members of local unions supported it
\n
It\u2019s an over 1,100 megawatt natural gas power generation facility that would serve as a backup generator for the area\u2019s energy grid
\n
The Public Service Commission will weigh all the comments it has received to make its final decision in the coming months<\/p>\n

Rachel Kirschner lives within a mile of the proposed gas plant.<\/p>\n

Kirschner joined others at a press conference to explain the project\u2019s environmental and health risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to pollute our air for a data center,\u201d said Kirschner. \u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her main concern is the air pollution it could cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have two kids,\u201d said Kirschner. \u201cI have a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old. It can give them asthma. It\u2019s very concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Spectrum News 1\/Phillip Boudreaux)<\/p>\n

Cassie Steiner of the Sierra Club of Wisconsin said the gas plant would consume millions of gallons of water.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf built, Red Oak and Foundry Ridge combined is projected to use an average of 21.2 million gallons of water per year,\u201d said Steiner. \u201cFresh clean water should be reserved as drinking water for all Wisconsinites and should not be used to operate new data centers that are already detrimental to our health and our climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project developer, Daniel Birmingham, addressed concerns that the Red Oak Ridge would only support data centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cData centers are a piece of that puzzle, but there are a lot of factors that are causing energy demand to grow in the region,\u201d said Birmingham. \u201cThe power generated from this plant will go onto the regional electrical grid where it will be used to be reliable and affordable to all of those users.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local unions said the natural gas plant would be vital for the region.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Invenergy)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are not going to build more power plants, we\u2019re going to end up with problems,\u201d said Josh Birong of Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 118. \u201cYou are going to have rolling brownouts. You are going to have industries that aren\u2019t going to come here and develop here. We are going to lose jobs because they are not going to have opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for Kirschner, having this gas plant would be devastating for the community she has called home her whole life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably won\u2019t stay living here next to a gas plant or near it,\u201d said Kirschner. \u201cHopefully, PSC does their job and says they can not build their plant here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Public Service Commission will weigh all the comments it has received to make its final decision in the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS, Wis. \u2014 Residents in the town of Paris spoke out overwhelmingly against the proposed Red Oak Ridge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23578,6,30,35743,2519,25816,35742],"class_list":["post-56410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-paris","tag-app-top-stories","tag-news","tag-paris","tag-phillip-boudreaux","tag-top-stories","tag-vod","tag-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}