Michigan City resident Dave Horn said NIPSCO’s coal plant in the city is a blight on the area.
“It’s just the beach is so beautiful,” said Horn, who’s lived in Michigan City for 41 years. “Probably, at one time, coal was a good answer, but it’s no longer a good answer. It’s not acceptable, and the pollution that comes off of it is undeniable.”
Horn and his wife, Gloria Horn, were two protestors who joined the Sierra Club and Just Transition Northwest Indiana in their opposition of the Michigan City Generating Station Monday night. The group of Northwest Indiana residents voiced their desire for NIPSCO to retire the Michigan City coal plant, expressing concerns that the plant will be kept online to power regional data centers.
NIPSCO originally planned to retire the Michigan City coal plant in 2028, but now representatives from the Sierra Club and JTNWI are concerned that the utility might go back on that promise.
A NIPSCO representative emailed a statement that didn’t clarify if plans for the Michigan City plant have changed.
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“NIPSCO and NiSource remain focused on providing safe, reliable and affordable energy while investing in the infrastructure needed to meet growing demand,” the statement said. “As regulatory requirements evolve, we will continue working with policymakers and industry stakeholders to support long-term planning and investment, while complying with all applicable requirements.
The Michigan City Generating Station’s future is expected to be included in discussions during NIPSCO’s series of 20 Year Energy Planning meetings.
“It just seems like NIPSCO is putting profits over the good of its citizens,” Gloria Horn said. “It’s frustrating. I feel like they’re reneging on a promise that they made, and that they could care less about what their normal citizens are praying just to get that profit.”
Gloria Horn said she also worried about how the local data center boom will affect regional coal plants. Dave Horn shared the same concerns about data centers and the coal plant’s future.
“The only reason I can think that they would want to (postpone retirement) is for pure profit,” Dave Horn said.
Megan Anderson, senior campaign organizer for the Sierra Club, said Monday that Michigan City residents have been concerned about local air quality and water pollution issues because of the power plant and its coal ash. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, coal ash is a byproduct that is primarily created from burning coal in power plants, and it contains toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, boron, lithium, molybdenum and radium, which can interfere with child development and cause cancer.
“We want to make sure that NIPSCO keeps its promise to the community to retire the coal plant by 2028,” Anderson said. “Unfortunately, we’re seeing all of the influx of data centers in the region, really creating significant energy demand, and NIPSCO seems to have lost sight of its customers that live here, you know, the everyday people.”
Anderson referenced the mass extended power outage following the Aug. 11 derecho, where more than 300,000 NIPSCO customers in Northwest Indiana were without power at one point. Some customers, most notably in Gary and Portage, were without power for more than two weeks.
“It just speaks to this larger issue that NIPSCO seems to have set aside prioritizing clean energy for people, prioritizing moving away from coal, and instead is just doing whatever it needs to do to get these data centers to come to the region and get them fossil fuels,” Anderson said.
Ashley Williams, JTNWI executive director and Michigan City resident, echoed Anderson’s sentiments, saying it’s important for residents to stand in unison to put pressure on NIPSCO.
“We want to see you stick to your retirement announcements,” Williams said to the utility. “We want no more coal. We want no more (artificial intelligence) data centers. We don’t want you to continue to experiment with our health and livelihoods for just the sake of profit.”
The partnership between the Sierra Club and JTNWI is important for regional environmental activism, both Anderson and Williams said. Working together and getting local residents involved shows corporations that their decisions take a toll on the community and creates more pressure to put residents first, Williams said.
“I think, in years past, it was a very different temperature,” she said. “But I think with the midterms upon us, we know that folks are wanting to translate this at the polls, that we’ve been on the brink of a probable political reckoning for elected officials that are voting in favor of the utilities and with big tech.”
Michigan City resident Lawrence Zimmer said he protested Monday because he wants to see more investment in clean energy and less in coal. He lives downwind of the coal plant, Zimmer said, and he’s noticed toxins fall on his roof and accumulate in his house’s gutters.
“After a rain, I’ve had to clean it out,” Zimmer said. “It’s literally a gray mud that I have to wash out of my gutters. … I know that stuff is there. It’s in the air.”
Zimmer also said he’s concerned that data centers will be powered at the expense of ratepayers. He’d like to see data centers powered by renewable energy to be more environmentally friendly.
“I realize that it’s not going to meet all of their needs, but it could help,” Zimmer said. “It could be a step in the right direction.”