Milwaukee Riverkeeper

Milwaukee Riverkeeper is a Wisconsin-based environmental advocacy organisation focused on water quality and water rights in the Milwaukee River basin and wider Great Lakes watershed. It operates within the Waterkeeper Alliance network and has historically concentrated on industrial pollution and shoreline access.

Milwaukee Riverkeeper became a central actor in the Microsoft Mount Pleasant data-centre water disclosure case. Represented by Midwest Environment Advocates, it sued the City of Racine in September 2025 after officials withheld projections of how much Lake Michigan water Microsoft's $3.3-4 billion Mount Pleasant campus would draw; the city released records within days, showing consumption scaling from 2.8 million gallons in 2026 to up to 8.4 million gallons a year at full build-out. The disclosure complicated Microsoft's January 2026 basin-level water-replenishment pledge, since the raw draw figure only became public through the group's litigation. Programme director Cheryl Nenn has argued that open, published water-draw data is essential given Wisconsin's positioning as a water-rich destination for data-centre investment; the group's tactics have since been cited elsewhere in the Great Lakes region as advocates press for the same disclosure from other operators.