RELEASE: Hermantown Data Center Environmental Study Appealed
DATE: 11/5/2025
CONTACTS: Sarah Horner, MCEA, shorner@mncenter.org, 612-868-3024
Kelsey Mack, SHDC, mackkelsey5@gmail.com, 218-409-3859
John Gustafson, SHDC, Gustafson.srfarm@gmail.com, 218-624-3971
Duluth, Minnesota – Today, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) and Stop the Hermantown Data Center (SHDC) appealed the City of Hermantown’s environmental study of the “Project Loon” hyperscale data center proposal because the study lacked the analysis required by law, and because the City did not even disclose that the proposal was a large data center. Meanwhile, documents unveiled through public data requests document that the City has known for over a year that this was a data center proposal, but kept this secret from the public until September 2025.
“Efforts to keep the proposed Hermantown data center a secret, revealed in documents obtained by public data requests, are some of the most extreme examples we’ve found of keeping the public in the dark about a data center,” stated Kathryn Hoffman, CEO of MCEA. “Minnesota law requires environmental review studies to shed light on what’s proposed and how to mitigate the impacts, but the Hermantown study failed to even say this was a data center proposal.”
"We were shocked to learn of the ways the City of Hermantown has been keeping people in the dark on a proposal of this magnitude," said Anna Estep, of the Stop the Hermantown Data Center. "People want to know, how can such an important decision be made without proper assessment and without involving the people it affects the most? We are doing everything we can to urge a real conversation."
MCEA is joined in the appeal by SHDC, a community group opposed to the data center proposal. The secrecy surrounding this proposal, and the failure to adequately study the impact of it on the community, has caused hundreds of local residents to rise up. At an October 20th meeting of the Hermantown City Council where a rezoning request was approved for the proposal, nearly 300 people attended the meeting and dozens testified against the proposal. In just a few weeks, the Facebook group for Stop the Hermantown Data Center has gained over 3,500 members.
The lawsuit is the fifth filed in Minnesota in the last two months challenging environmental review studies of data center proposals. The type of environmental study conducted by the City of Hermantown is called an Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR), an environmental planning tool sometimes used by governments to study the impacts of proposed developments within a geographic area. Minnesota law demands that AUARs include a “level of analysis comparable to that of an [Environmental Impact Statement],” the highest level of environmental review in Minnesota. When a large specific project is included in the study, Minnesota law requires AUARs to include “clear, complete and detailed” descriptions of the specific projects under review.
The Hermantown AUAR doesn’t meet these legal requirements. It doesn’t even describe the proposal as a data center, calling it a “light industrial” development. The study fails to describe basic components of the proposed data center, estimating power and water usage based on a generic light industrial development, not a large data center. And while this environmental study is supposed to analyze ways to mitigate these impacts, the AUAR fails to provide any commitments to reduce the impact of water use, power use, or air, light, and noise pollution on the surrounding community.
The 1.8 million square foot data center proposed in Hermantown is part of a wave of hyperscale data centers being proposed across Minnesota to support the growing demand for artificial intelligence. Data centers at this scale may provide some economic benefits, but they can also consume massive amounts of electricity, large amounts of water, and huge quantities of metals and other materials. For example, if all the data centers currently proposed in the state were built they would consume as much electricity as every home in Minnesota.
Failure to address the specific impacts of data center development in the Hermantown AUAR likely dramatically understated the impact of the proposal. The study based the water and electricity use for “Project Loon” based on the square footage and assumptions about general light industrial developments, meaning that key potential impacts from the proposal weren’t studied. For example, the AUAR claims it would use 50,000 gallons of water a day, a figure far below similar data center proposals of this size. Similarly, the AUAR estimated the electricity use for the proposal based on “typical light industrial use,” when data centers consume far more electricity.
MCEA and SHDC are asking the court to halt the project, enjoin any permits or other decisions for the proposal, and send the environmental review study back to the City of Hermantown to be redone in accordance with Minnesota law. The lawsuit filed today is separate from a petition for the preparation of an Environmental Assessment Worksheet that was filed on October 17, and is pending in front of the Hermantown City Council.
Questions about the lawsuit, a copy of the complaint, and interview requests can be directed to Sarah Horner at the contact information listed at the top of this release.
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Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) is a nonprofit environmental law organization whose mission is to use the law and science to protect Minnesota’s environment, natural resources, and the health of its people.
Stop the Hermantown Data Center, LLC, (SHDC) is a non-profit grassroots organization of local residents formed to oppose the proposal for a large, hyperscale data center in the middle of 420 acres of densely wooded, agricultural, and residential properties in Hermantown, Minnesota.