On a soupy September morning in northeast Wisconsin, a blue semi-truck arrives at Tisch Mills Farm Center in the tiny town of Carlton. Under the hopper of a massive grain bin, roughly 50,000 pounds of ground corn slide down a chute and into the truck’s open back. Within minutes, the driver pulls back onto the road to haul the feed to an Algoma dairy farm, where livestock will eat it.
This process repeats roughly a dozen times each day, with some trucks transporting grain or fertilizer to customers in Illinois and Minnesota. Business is booming, but President Chris Kohnle worries the 80-year-old, family-run establishment could soon take a blow.
The reason? The nuclear power plant a few miles up the road, which has sat lifeless for over a decade…