NEWBURGH, Ind. — The Warrick County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to pause any data center development for 180 days.
The votes from Sarah Seaton, Stacey Franz and Terry Phillippe came during a special meeting at 9 a.m. at the Friedman Park Event Center. Monday evening, the Warrick County Area Plan Commission voted to send the ordinance to the commissioners, and suspended their rules to meet the timeline of the special meeting.
A 180-day moratorium is meant to allow the county’s study committee to comb through the proposed ordinance regulating data centers in Warrick County and prepare it to come before the APC for recommendation.
Currently, the APC is set to discuss that ordinance at the Nov. 9 meeting. At that time, if the ordinance is approved, it will go to the Warrick County Commissioners. The commission could also opt to make changes to the ordinance.
‘Project Zora’ top of mind for residents
At the end of July, the commissioners, their attorney and members of the Warrick County Economic Development team met in an executive session to discuss a potential data center development in the northern part of the county.
This project, known as “Project Zora,” is on about 1,200 acres in the county that is primarily reclaimed mine land, according to the commissioners. The commissioners do not know the exact location, but said Tuesday they were told “south of Lynnville.”
As of now, the company, also unknown, looks to develop around 300 acres of that for a data center. The development team told commissioners they hope to publicly identify the company who will use the data center by the end of the year.
No permit application is expected to come before Warrick County officials before January 2027.
The commissioners were clear that no nondisclosure agreements have been signed, or will be signed in the future around this project.
Jessica Hodges, a Lynnville resident, said she lives in the home her grandparents built. One day, she’d like to pass it on to her kids.
“You can’t buy this, you can’t replace this and moving is not an option,” Hodges said.
Hodges said she and her neighbors rely on a cistern, well or lake to have running water. Data centers can impact groundwater availability, and deplete local water resources, she said.
“My family and neighbors are among those that could be directly affected,” Hodges said. “This means it’s not an abstract environmental issue for us, it’s a personal one.”
Hodges urged the commission to vote for the moratorium and listen to the residents speaking before making any decisions.
Christina Martin, a new Elberfeld land owner, plans to build her family home this fall with her husband. They want to raise their two small children there and grow old together, she told commissioners Tuesday.
“We chose this area for its peace, rural character, wildlife, open land, and the quiet that cannot be found in the city,” she said. “This morning I’m asking you to protect those qualities by voting to place a deferral on all data center development in Warrick County.”
Martin said she is against any data centers being built in Warrick County, but was specifically addressing the ordinance up for a vote at this time.
“There are too many unanswered questions and potentially irreversible consequences for us to move forward without fully understanding what we are inviting into our community,” she said.
Martin asked the commissioners to look into cities and counties where large scale developments have already taken place, where resident’s stories show problems often aren’t known until construction is complete.
“We have the opportunity that other communities did not,” she said, “to learn first, and decide second.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Warrick County approves moratorium on data centers
Reporting by Sarah Loesch, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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By Sarah Loesch, Evansville Courier & Press | USA TODAY Network
