Over eighteen short months, Amazon and Microsoft along with St. Joseph County officials placed hyper data centers on a fast track for approval, bypassing sufficient study and community input regarding the environmental impacts on our community. County residents are responding with growing opposition. Despite a media advocacy campaign by some local officials and the business community, the proposed 1057-acre data center on Chicago Trail was rejected three times in 2025 – the County Land Use Planning Committee, Area Plan Commission, and the County Council. Rumors persist of more to come – another try at the Chicago Trail site, a data center proposal within the city limits of South Bend.
It is now time for St. Joseph County to establish a moratorium on proposals for hyper data centers until the county conducts an objective, hard-nosed third-party impact assessment of the GM/Samsung Battery Plant and AWS Project Ranier operations to date. Opposition to data centers is growing statewide – red, blue, rural, suburban. Marshall, Putnam, Starke and White County have done so. Senate President pro tempore Rodric Bray has called for state and local governments to rethink how nondisclosure agreements are used surrounding data centers.
There is much ground for St. Joseph County to make up to ensure current data center operations not only protect our community but advance it. A pause in data center approvals will allow for a third-party assessment of the first phase of the AWS’s Project Ranier with release of the results to the public.
There are many questions and much to assess about the Amazon project. These are just a few of the questions: Why was Project Ranier not required to produce some portion of their energy using renewables? Why was the developer not required to address light, air, and sound pollution issues? Was such an outsized tax abatement and tax increment finance district necessary for this project? What of the $143 million Community Enhancement Fund promised by Amazon? Reportedly only $250,000 has been distributed to date. This is a very tiny proportion of the total $11 B investment…0.002 percent of the project’s total value! St. Joseph County residents deserve better from one of the wealthiest companies in the world.
There is already much ground for the County to make up for ensuring current data center operations not only protect our community but advance it. The County is obligated to see that all large energy and water consumers are held to full transparency, accountability, and operate using clean energy and without contributing to local air, water, and/or sound pollution. Non-disclosure of economic development agreements or identity of the proposed end user should be prohibited. The public should be free to scrutinize the company’s track record and practices at their other data center projects.
Based on this impact assessment, the County should adopt necessary regulations employed by other communities for such developments before consideration of proposed zoning changes, site plans, or economic development agreements. Such regulations include:
- Provisions that prevent offloading of increased energy costs onto consumers and small businesses. Establish requirements for data centers to generate most of their own energy using clean renewable sources.
- Process wastewater on site to return for local reuse or replenish groundwater after specific treatment and regulatory oversight.
- Develop specific job creation thresholds, strong hiring requirements, and timeframes for the creation of permanent local resident, union shop, on-site jobs at 150% median wage.
- Ensure full transparency agreements and prohibit non-disclosure agreements, shell companies, and secret project code names to cover identity of developer and end user.
- Prohibit the use of excessive financial incentives in local subsidies, tax abatements and tax increment financing districts and require a substantial up-front community investment by the end user commensurate with the project’s total value.
- Employ financial guarantees, including decommissioning bonds to offset significant end-of-life costs to ensure site restoration without taxpayer-funded clean up bills, responsible closure, and environmental protection.
- Utilize the findings and policies generated from the assessment to inform and regulate the development of the Microsoft Data Center in Granger.
- Uphold and revise the St. Joseph County Comprehensive Plan with zoning ordinances and regulations accordingly.
The extreme demands of additional data centers risks constraining job growth from other future economic development projects, agricultural productivity, and building of affordable housing. The county’s “one-trick pony” approach to economic development leaves us vulnerable to inevitable technological and economic shifts and a precarious future.
(Titles and affiliations are for identification purposes only and do not imply endorsement by Saint Mary’s College or University of Arizona)