The city of Adams will break ground soon on a municipal waste processing plant, and hopes it can still salvage other parts of a large-scale development agreement with an Australian green energy company.
The plant will employ 14 people and will process municipal solid waste to be used in an as-yet-unconstructed waste-to-energy power plant. Adams City Administrator Bob Ellisor said the green energy company, GEITS, will break ground as soon as the weather gets warmer.
“The initial structure will be 20,000 square feet,” said Ellisor. “The groundbreaking will occur as soon as Mother Nature allows.”
Stay informed on the latest news
Sign up for WPR’s email newsletter.
Still on hold is a much more ambitious plan for a 200,000 square-foot solar energy factory, floating power plants to clean up the city’s waste water, solar and wind power street lights, and public school improvements. Last month, GEITS balked at moving forward with those plans, citing public opposition and division on the Adams City Council.
Ellisor said he’s happy that GEITS is now reopening talks.
“GEITS has been very amenable to this whole process, and they’ve been very amenable to any new or revised agreement,” said Ellisor. “I’d consider it a minor miracle that they’re even still here, because there were different components that couldn’t be lived up to early on. But yet they still persevered and stayed with us.”
Ellisor said they are talking about what gets built and when. “How the development takes place won’t be the same as it was originally planned, but the good news is, it’s still proceeding,” he said. “The scale of the entire project is the only thing that’s in question right now.“
Adams has hired the municipal law firm H. Stanley Riffle to help craft a new green energy development agreement.
Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2025, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.
