When Cynthia North walks out in her front yard, and looks to her left across the street, she sees metal fences, trucks coming up and down a dirt road, and dirt mounds.
She used to look out and be proud of where she lives. Now, North feels fury.
“The property value is going to be nothing,” said North, a Wheatfield resident. “The noise is going to be horrible. My water is going to be horrible. … It’s not going to be livable here.”
North lives across the Project Rise data center construction site, located between E. 1350 N and County Road 300 in Kankakee Township, near NIPSCO’s R.M. Schahfer Generating Station.
“I’ve lived here for 12 years,” North said. “I’m thinking about (moving). I don’t see how much of a choice I have, but then again, who’s going to buy it with this thing right here?”
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North and other Jasper County residents are turning their frustration with the incoming $7 billion data center into action. A group of about eight local activists are fundraising $10,000 for legal counsel to represent community members and to fight back against the development.
“We want to stop it,” said Georgette Aguilar, a Jasper County resident who lives about six miles south of the site. “If there’s any legal possible way to stop this, we want to stop it.”
The $10,000 is for a retainer for legal representation, North said, and she’s already talked to a lawyer about their concerns.
According to the group’s GoFundMe, they’re hoping to hire land-use counsel to see if the project has followed and must still follow industrial land use rules; to investigate local, state and federal law violations; demand enforcement of permits, land-use decisions and public process; and keep neighbors informed about the project.
“I don’t think people are still aware of what’s coming,” Aguilar said. “And sadly, some people, I think, feel like, ‘Well, if it’s not in my backyard, I’m not going to worry about it’.”
Project Rise, a $7 billion data center campus, was announced in June. According to Amazon, the project will create 250 permanent jobs in Jasper County.
North and other community members said there were months of meetings with residents expressing concerns.
“By the time it got to us, it already felt like a done deal, and they were already voting it in,” said Dawn Jefferson, who lives near the border of Newton and Jasper counties.
North has been actively voicing her concerns about Project Rise for about three months, she said. She learned about the project after seeing “no data center” signs in nearby yards and said she didn’t know about the project before then.
“I’ve had to teach myself everything,” North said. “I wish I had been involved in (environmental activism) more because there’s a lot more going on than just these data centers.”
North said she relied on local advocacy organizations like Just Transition Northwest Indiana to teach her about data centers’ negative effects.
Ashley Williams, executive director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said in a statement Friday that her organization has worked alongside Jasper County residents since the data center project was announced last year.
Williams alleged that Amazon fast-tracked the data center project without standard zoning procedure, environmental review or community guardrails.
According to data from JTNWI, Amazon estimates that the data center will use between 22,000 and 27,000 gallons of water per day. The site is estimated to have 13 buildings between 114,000 and 128,000 square feet across 321 acres.
“Meanwhile, residents face threats to their water, quality of life, and farmland, and ongoing nuisances from mass grading at the Project Rise site,” Williams said in her statement. “We believe what’s happening in Jasper County presents a strong case for legal challenge and will set a regional precedent for other communities facing similar dangerous, unchecked data center projects. … These are stark injustices that deserve their day in court, and JTNWI will continue to support residents in their pursuit of justice.”
Josh Weissman, director of infrastructure capacity delivery at Amazon Web Services, reacted to community members’ and activists’ concerns with Project Rise.
“This is an important project and we’re committed to getting it right,” Weissman said. “We worked with county officials to shape our project around local priorities, and we held an open house so residents could get their questions answered face to face. We’re going to keep engaging, holding ourselves to a higher standard, and earning our place here over the long term.”
The federal government has ordered coal-fired power plants — like Wheatfield-based Schahfer — to stay open to power data centers, but Weissman said in his statement that those decisions are separate from Amazon’s contract or future service with NIPSCO. Amazon will directly fund total costs to power its data centers and will bring 2,600 megawatts of new generation and 400 megawatts of battery storage to the grid.
Weissman’s statement alleges that its agreement will save NIPSCO electric customers about $1.25 billion over the next 15 years and said Amazon has also invested in five Indiana wind and solar projects.
According to JTNWI, the Amazon project will use 384 diesel generators. Weissman said in his statement that generators are necessary to provide power to Amazon data centers and meet EPA emissions standards, adding that they run for “approximately 10 hours per year, primarily for testing and maintenance.”
“Before we install generators, our air permits go through multiple state and federal review to ensure full compliance with all regulations,” Weissman said in his statement. “We take air quality in our communities very seriously, and our actual emissions are a fraction of what our permits allow.”
North is frustrated with Jasper County officials, specifically the commissioners, for pushing the project through. She believes they approved the projects without listening to the opinions of the people they represent.
According to Amazon, the company worked closely with Jasper County officials to tailor it to local needs, and it was approved by a unanimous vote of county officials.
The Post-Tribune requested a comment from the Jasper County Board of Commissioners, which was forwarded to Jasper County Attorney Eric Beaver, according to a letter sent via email to the Post-Tribune.
In his letter, Beaver said neither he nor the commissioners are aware of any effort to bring legal action to halt Project Rise. Beaver’s letter said the county’s approval processes complied with applicable legal standards, and the county has no jurisdiction over federal or state level approvals.
Beaver also commented on residents’ general concerns with Project Rise.
“Much has been said on social media about the adverse effects of data centers generally. Nationally, data centers have been built with little oversight and without addressing the legitimate concerns of local residents. Jasper County officials shared those same concerns at the outset,” Beaver said in his letter to the Post-Tribune. “This particular project in Jasper County is unique. The primary concerns about the negative effects on local water supplies and increased utility bills should be assessed in review of the facts of this development.”
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Beaver referenced minutes from the Jasper County Board of Commissioners Jan. 6 meeting, where NIPSCO gave a “lengthy and detailed presentation of the project.” He emailed those minutes to the Post-Tribune as well.
According to his letter, Beaver said the data center will not draw water from the ground for cooling and will have no impact on the volume of underground water supplies. It will use between 8-10 million gallons of water per year for cooling, which he says is the same as a golf course.
Beaver also said, through the GenCo model, NIPSCO customers will not see electricity rates increase because of the data center. His letter also said county officials have retained technical experts to help understand how large developments will affect the county.
Through the project, Amazon is donating millions of dollars to Jasper County, including a $25 million investment in local water infrastructure to bring municipal water service to the town of Wheatfield.
The data center will be located in Kankakee Township, but not technically in the town of Wheatfield, North said. If Amazon is investing in water resources, she said she wants it to be for the area that the facility is located in.
Because people have already seen action at the Project Rise site, Aguilar said she’s concerned they might not be able to do much. She worries that — even as Amazon and local officials say there won’t be impacts to water supply or electricity bills — Jasper County residents will get the short end of the stick with this deal.
But, Aguilar said she reminds herself that she can’t give up.
“I have to keep fighting,” Aguilar said. “I think about the long-term consequences, and I’m scared for our future. … We have to do something.”