Why MCEA filed Minnesota's first lawsuits challenging data center's environmental review
By Sarah Horner, MCEA Communications Director
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MCEA’s Legal Fellow Luke Norquist drove down to North Mankato in July to attend a City Council vote we strongly suspected involved a hyper-scale data center.
The Council was voting on whether to approve an environmental review document called an Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) for a vaguely defined 4 million square foot technology park.. Very little information was provided to the public about what a technology park was, what it would do, or how the project would be designed to minimize environmental impacts.
Luke’s been closely tracking these proposals across the state. Even though the AUAR failed to talk about “data centers,” he knew to look for signs. The project would draw up to 30 million gallons of water per day from the area’s Mt. Simon Hinckley Aquifer, a massive amount of water MCEA knows to be consistent with data center usage. The AUAR stated that the project’s main source of the noise would come from computers. Deep in its traffic analysis, the AUAR applied the land use code commonly used for data centers.
Luke urged council members at the meeting not to approve the environmental review document. Claiming that MCEA strongly suspected the project was a data center, Luke said there was no way to know what the full environmental impacts of the proposed development would be, much less how the City and region could accommodate that kind of spike in water and electricity use, unless the City spoke plainly about what it was reviewing
City staff dodged.
“They said there was no data center project before the City, that they didn’t know what the development might end up being. They said it could be a warehouse, or a data center, or a lot of different things,” Luke recalled.
Days later, city records obtained through a public records request showed North Mankato was indeed pursuing a data center in the AUAR location.
Unfortunately, North Mankato’s process is not unique in Minnesota.
“Data center companies appear to be pitching this secretive, corner-cutting strategy in city after city,” Luke said.
The lack of transparency shrouding hyper-scale data center proposals advancing across the state and the repercussions it has for accurately assessing the impacts this novel industry could have on Minnesota’s water supply and electricity demand compelled MCEA to file two data center lawsuits this month.
While they name North Mankato and Lakeville, the aim is really to bring the transparency, public engagement, and adequate environmental review missing from proposals across Minnesota back into the process. We’ll keep you posted on how they unfold.
As our CEO Kathryn Hoffman told the press when we announced the litigation:
“Minnesotans have a right to know where the energy will come from to power these massive facilities and how our clean air, drinking water, and quality of life will be protected. Without answers to these basic questions, Minnesota can’t fully weigh the pros and cons of whether these developments are right for our state. Our laws require more transparency, and Minnesotans deserve it.”
Ideally, we’d like to see our state agencies have a role in reviewing these proposals so someone is considering how this new demand on resources could impact our groundwater and energy supply statewide, as opposed to just inside individual communities. We have an existing environmental review process that includes state oversight in Minnesota called an Environmental Impact Statement.
That’s one of the solutions MCEA will continue to advocate for as our state wrestles with how best to position itself for both the impacts and the opportunities that come with hyper-scale data centers.
In the meantime, Luke and other attorneys on our staff will continue to field calls from concerned residents across Minnesota who are fighting for access to more information about ill-defined proposals under consideration in their cities. And if and when necessary, show up at City Council meetings to call for the transparency Minnesotans’ deserve.
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