Wisconsin News

Officials have until May 30 to reach deal to move Green Bay coal piles or risk losing $15M grant

May 20, 2025

Green Bay-area officials have less than two weeks to reach a deal to move downtown coal piles, or they risk losing out on a $15 million grant.

The C. Reiss Co., which has operated a bulk commodities storage facility on the west bank of the Fox River since 1900, owns the massive coal piles. Local leaders have tried and failed to move the piles for decades, viewing the land as prime riverfront real estate.

In December, a deal with the company fell apart after the Brown County Board voted to make changes to an agreement reached by the company and county administration. The deal would have moved the coal piles to a portion of the decommissioned Pulliam Power Plant. The county owns the Pulliam site and is in the process of redeveloping it for the Port of Green Bay.

Since then, there’s been little movement in reaching a new agreement — even after the parties publicly said they planned to resume negotiations earlier this year.

And time is running out.

The state has set a May 30 deadline for the city, the county and the company to reach a deal to move the coal piles, according to a statement from the Wisconsin Department of Administration. If they fail to do so, the state could reclaim a $15 million federally funded grant it awarded in 2022 to support redeveloping the power plant and moving the coal.

“We are urging the parties to work together as soon as possible to reach consensus to ensure these resources can be used for this important project as they were intended,” the Department of Administration stated.

County officials have said they’re willing to engage in “non-binding mediation” regarding alternate sites for the coal piles beyond the power plant site. Meanwhile, C. Reiss has maintained that the power plant property would be preferable and was the initial intent of the grant application.

Green Bay city officials have said the negotiation is between Brown County and C. Reiss. The city did pass a memorandum of understanding that it would work with C. Reiss to redevelop the site along the river that’s currently home to the coal piles.

Green Bay City Council President Brian Johnson said the city has a limited role in the negotiation because the grant was awarded to the county and the county is the owner of the power plant site.

“If there’s an opportunity for us to go to mediation and really get every party at the table talking about this … we’ve been more than willing to do that,” he said. “Unfortunately, up to this point, the county has declined.”

In a statement, C. Reiss said it has repeatedly agreed to go to mediation to resolve the issue.

“It’s hard to understand why the County now says they can’t consider relocating the coal piles to the old Pulliam Power Plant site, which was the intended purpose of the state’s $15 million grant,” the statement reads.

In a May 9 summary of events document, Brown County Corporation Counsel David Hemery wrote that the county encouraged C. Reiss to apply through its formal process, with others interested in the power plant site, after the company rejected the board’s changes to the initial deal.

The proposal C. Reiss submitted through that process was a 100-year offer for the entire site, instead of just a portion of the site, and was viewed by the county as a “hostile offer,” Hemery wrote.

“The point of mediation is to have parties negotiate in good faith to reach a fair resolution via the assistance of a mediator,” the summary reads. “History is a solid predictor of the future and whether parties are willing to negotiate in good faith.”

In the document, Hemery said county officials recently requested a meeting with the state to discuss their options to resolve the matter, but their request was denied.

“They feel the County is in this untenable situation because of the requirement from the State that the County agree to C. Reiss’ demands, or risk having all remaining port related Neighborhood Investment Grant funds being sent back to the Federal Government,” he wrote.

Brown County Board Chair Pat Buckley said the county was first asked about mediation in a meeting in which the city proposed an alternate site for the coal piles. He proposed a second alternate location late last month that he called a “turn-key” site.

“We consider everything that’s brought to us, and we haven’t been just sitting by, not looking at things,” Buckley said. “I think that we’ve been actively trying to figure out the best way to accommodate everybody for the port, including C. Reiss.”

Brown County Board Supervisor Patrick Evans represents the northwest side of Green Bay, and he said he recently met with C. Reiss. He said the length of a lease at the Pulliam site has been the biggest sticking point, and he thinks an agreement can be reached.

“We’re a lot closer than what people think we are, and if everybody sat in the room and hashed this out, I think a deal can be done,” he said. “We bought the Pulliam site to move the coal piles. That was basically the reason why we bought it because we saw this golden opportunity to move the coal piles.”

Evans also said he’s trying to schedule a closed session meeting with C. Reiss and the county board to hash out the sticking points.

But the issue had not made it onto the agenda for Wednesday‘s board meeting as of Monday afternoon.

“I think to put something on the agenda, to go into closed session, we should at least have some parameters of what the deal is, and then have an up or down vote,” Buckley said.

If May 30 comes and goes without a deal, Evans said he expects the county to lose the $15 million grant. And without the grant, he said, redeveloping the power plant to serve the port could take much longer than initially planned.

“I’m not going to the taxpayers to say, ‘Oh, by the way, people of Brown County, I need to get $15 million from you when we had the opportunity to get $15 million from the state.’ I mean, that would be political suicide,” Evans said. “And besides that, it’s just dumb.”

With just weeks to get a deal done to preserve the grant funding, Johnson said all parties need to be willing to compromise because “opportunities like this don’t come around every day.”

“These are the types of moments that people will look back one day and say, ‘Wow, those guys did it right.’ And if we miss the opportunity, this will be talked about for decades, about how we got it wrong,” Johnson said.