EVANSVILLE – More than 25 organizations have banded together to ask local governments in Indiana to place a moratorium on data center development for the foreseeable future.
A news release from Citizens Action Coalition – an environmental advocacy group that often intervenes in CenterPoint rate cases – listed 27 organizations calling for the ban. Among them were local groups Direct Action Against CenterPoint Energy and Warrick County Data Center Discussion.
They seek an indefinite pause on “data center development, permitting, and construction to allow adequate time for reasonable policies and regulations to be enacted that protect Hoosiers from harmful impacts.”
“AI data centers are the number one threat to utility affordability, reliability, and environmental sustainability in Indiana,” Ben Inskeep, CAC’s program director, stated in the release on Thursday. “Elected officials should ensure that there are adequate rules in place to protect their constituents from the extremely harmful impacts that a data center can impose on a community.”
Other groups signing on were Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter, the Hoosier Environmental Council and everyone from Black Lives Matter South Bend to the residents of Washington, Indiana.
The call mirrors efforts across the country, as scores of residents have fought to keep the expensive, hulking, energy-zapping facilities from swallowing up land in their communities. A hyperscale data center recently proposed for Northern Utah would cover around 40,000 acres, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Another in southeast Michigan would stretch across 1.8 million square feet – about the size of 32 football fields.
They use massive amounts of water and could send utility bills skyrocketing − something Evansville residents certainly don’t need.
Local ratepayers saw their average electric bills surge by nearly 25% after the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission greenlit a hike in CenterPoint’s base electric costs last year.
Another jump is coming later this year. Inskeep told the Courier & Press in March that a household using around 1,000 kilowatt hours a month should expect to see their bill surge by $9, including sales tax. That’s on top of the $44 monthly hike residents endured on average last year.
And that’s if you’re lucky. Some residents who testified during a marathon IURC listening session at Old National Events Plaza in April told commissioners they were battling monthly bills as large as $2,000. Those kinds of costs were forcing families to choose between buying groceries and medicine or paying their utility bills.
“I almost lost my home, and I did go a month without my insulin because I couldn’t pay both,” local resident Jessica Dennis said at the time.
Data centers could exacerbate that further, Thursday’s release stated. It says “approximately 60 large data center proposals have been made in Indiana over the past two years,” often with a lack of transparency. Only 13 counties have passed data center moratoriums or bans.
No proposals have come through Evansville or Vanderburgh County thus far, at least publicly. In December, a company called Sourcecolo said it would come to the Warrick County Area Plan Commission for a data center presentation. After community outcry, that was later moved to February and then canceled altogether.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville-area groups among those calling for pause on data centers
Reporting by Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
