While things seem negative right now, there is a little good news seeping in between the cracks.
In Ft. Wayne, we are being bombarded with environmentally bad decisions surrounding the Google data center. From demolishing wetlands to AEP requesting to do it again to build power lines for Google’s site, after one year of having Google as a neighbor, there have been serious concerns about their practices. The latest has come in the form of diesel. Recently, Google asked the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) to add 140 industrial diesel-fired generators to their facility, bringing their total to 174. BUT the community showed up to push back!
On Thursday, November 13th, IDEM held a public hearing and over 300 folks from the Fort Wayne area showed up to let IDEM know that we do not want dirty diesel. The line to get into the public hearing went out the door. People are engaged and activated! Check out one news report: Allen County residents pack IDEM’s public hearing on Google data center permit (21 Alive News).
Watching the community raising their voices and supporting one another as we came together to fight back was energizing. Yet we know that this is far from over - the fights continue. In fact, our friends at Citizens Action Coalition are tracking about 40 different data centers in various stages of the start-up process including a new data center proposed in Allen County (AI Data Center Build Out Creates Unprecedented Risk to Hoosiers). Indiana Michigan Power customers are calling on the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to deny the companies’ request to add 3,300 MW of gas to power Google’s Fort Wayne and Amazon’s New Carlisle AI Data Centers (sc.org/IandMdatacenters).
If you would like to take some action, one way to start is by sending along a message to our decision-makers about the huge burden Hoosiers are paying to have data centers as neighbors at sc.org/INdatacenters.
Let’s keep ramping up the pressure on our decision-makers so they will make cleaner, healthier decisions.
Nicole Snider
Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter volunteer