Foxconn’s North American corporate headquarters will be located at 611 E. Wisconsin Ave. in downtown Milwaukee.
Although Foxconn’s 20 million square foot campus will be located nearly 30 miles from Milwaukee, its impact could be very evident to the city in the years to come.
Concerns over environmental impact, water usage and traffic backups are at the forefront of many minds across the region, as the Taiwanese electronics company plans to finish its Mount Pleasant manufacturing campus in 2022.
Downtown Location
The visibility of Foxconn in Milwaukee will be most evident Downtown, as the company bought a building at 611 E. Wisconsin Ave. to house 500 employees as their new North American headquarters. Foxconn announced they will be working with startup companies and entrepreneurs at the location, which will also serve as an innovation center.
Employees at the headquarters will include teams who will be responsible for construction and logistics of the buildings at the Mount Pleasant campus, according to a Foxconn press release.
"We are excited to establish our North America Corporate Headquarters in the heart of the central business district close to the lakefront and near a lot of the other developments helping make Milwaukee a city on the move," said Dr. Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn founder and CEO Terry Gou, at a June 15 press conference.
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Many local leaders are hopeful that the headquarters will create more jobs. "We know this is really all about jobs,” said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett at the press conference. “We know this is something really important to us."
Air Pollution
Although more jobs may be created in downtown Milwaukee, air pollution might be a negative impact of the new Mount Pleasant campus. Foxconn would have the highest emissions in the region, according to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources numbers cited in a Legislative Reference Bureau report from last April. This could have a lasting impact on the air quality in Southeastern Wisconsin and beyond.
According to the report, Foxconn’s most significant air pollutants would be volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). The report also says, “Foxconn’s permit application shows that the company plans to emit hundreds of tons of carbon monoxide, particulates, sulfur dioxide and various hazardous air pollutants in addition to VOCs and NOx each year.” Some of these pollutants create smog, which can have negative health risks. However, the Wisconsin DNR approved Foxconn’s four air permits for the campus last April. A news release from Foxconn said, “The four air permits issued followed the same review process and environmental standards as any other applicant.”
This is alarming to Glen Fredlund, a geography and conservation and environmental science professor at UW-Milwaukee. “Those ‘criteria pollutants’ are typically not classified as ‘toxic,’ but are harmful to public health if ambient exposure exceeds the thresholds set by the EPA,” he said. “It is especially concerning to me that the State of Wisconsin's moves to accommodate Foxconn are occurring in an era when the EPA is doing everything possible to deregulate air quality.”
A document provided by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation said that there will be “no difference” in Environmental Protection Requirements for the campus.
Water Usage
Mount Pleasant plans on diverting up to 7 million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan for the Foxconn plant to use. Many environmentalists fear this will set a dangerous precedent, as the DNR granted the request as an exception to the Great Lake Compact’s ban on diversions.
Mount Pleasant, being a “straddling community,” meaning it lies partly within the Great Lakes basin and partly outside of the Great Lakes basin, had to apply to use the water because the 2008 Great Lakes Compact banned diversions of water out of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin.
The DNR can grant the diversion if the water transferred “shall be used solely for Public Water Supply Purposes.” This is something that the Compact Implementation Coalition, a group working to uphold the Great Lakes Compact, took issue with.
“The City of Racine’s application is clear that the water it is proposing to transfer outsidethe Great Lakes Basin would supply exclusively industrial and commercial customers,” the group said in a letter to the DNR.
Timothy Ehlinger, an associate professor with the UW-Milwaukee School of Biological Sciences, said the impact remains to be seen. “Will taking millions of gallons out of the lake influence the lake…probably, yes,” he said. “Will it be a major impact? It all depends on what they can put back.”
Foxconn announced they would be installing a $30 million zero liquid discharge system in order to reduce the facility's water intake requirements. "This system will be state-of-the-art technology to reduce the water our facility needs to operate by millions of gallons per day. We not only seek to comply with all regulations where we do business, we also work to exceed them when possible,” said Woo.
“It’s a significant loss. But there are other significant losses of water,” said Ehlinger. “Most of the currents take the water south. My guess is that it’ll be difficult to see a measurable change in Milwaukee’s drinking water supply.”
Traffic Backups
Another concern is traffic in the area. Although the majority of construction for the I-94 North-South Freeway Project is occurring in Racine and Kenosha counties, construction is still occurring across portions of Milwaukee County. Ryan Rd. has seen some major construction, as a $16 million project on the Ryan Road Interchange began last fall. The project, which also impacts Puetz Road and Drexel Avenue, is said to be completed sometime this fall.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation website currently lists 26 road closures in Milwaukee County as a part of the project. The DOT says most construction will be done in 2019.
Lasting Impact?
Construction has already begun on a phase of the Mount Pleasant campus, which plans to be three times the size of the Pentagon. Foxconn plans to employ 13,000 people at the campus, as they will apparently create the first liquid crystal display (LCD) manufacturing facility in North America. However, the impact across the region and Milwaukee remains to be seen.
“There’s going to be an impact definitely,” said Ehlinger. “Whether it’ll be negative or positive depends on how the situation will be managed. It’s an extremely complex story.”
