Hovey House in downtown Mt. Vernon is bursting at the seams — surpassing the 105 visitor capacity, still leaving dozens of frustrated attendees outside.
Most are wearing red shirts to protest data centers.
The Posey County Area Plan Commission (APC) held this special meeting Monday night, to go over the first draft of a new data center ordinance.
This is in response to a flood of comments from the previous County Commission meeting, where it was revealed commissioners had signed a non disclosure agreement (NDA) with a data center development company.
Many had concerns. Attending Monday was Shannon Straw of St. Phillips.
“I've done deep dives and researched a lot of articles on this — from geoscientists, hydrologists,” she said. “I've written three papers at school for this, and it is not a good thing. The environmental impacts outweigh the economic impacts.”
The APC assembled to tweak the 45-page ordinance draft. This is a very early step in passing an ordinance, said APC member David Pearce.
“When it eventually passes — because some form of it will pass — and it will go out of the Area Plan Commission, will be forwarded to the Posey County Commissioners, at which time they will make a decision …”
Then cities like Mt. Vernon, New Harmony and Poseyville have to pass it as well under the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) paradigm.
This draft ordinance was taken from both the solar and wind farm ordinances. Several changes had to be made, noticed resident Jake Mitchell.
“I found language where the data center isn't responsible for deconstructing physical material below five feet, and so as soon as I read that, I was like, ‘if I'm not responsible for anything deeper than five feet, then I'm going to put everything deeper than five feet, so I'm not responsible for it.’”
The APC addressed this — striking any limits to underground remediation. They took three hours to clean up and strengthen the language of the ordinance.
They redefined "Minor" and "Major" data centers. A “Minor” data center is under 100,000 square feet. A “Major” data center is more than 100,000 square feet.
They increased the noise-testing radius of residential areas near proposed project sites, and strengthened site remediation.
Several changes were just removing language that didn't apply to data centers.
The draft ordinance can be read here.
At about 8:30 at night they got to public comment. John Bates, who represents 1,600 members of the Local Plumbers and Steam Fitters union, usually speaks at these meetings about the jobs such projects create.
“It's a lot of construction work to build these, and then maintenance jobs afterwards. There's one that just got done in Fort Wayne, where we have 20 UA pipe fitters that are in the facility all the time.”
He acknowledged the need to build projects responsibly.
“They need to be built environmentally friendly, and also, to where they're not passing (utility) rates on to the ratepayers.”
Early in the meeting, Commission Attorney Trent Van Haaften emphasized that this document is a work in progress.
“… this is just a further discussion,” he said. “There's nothing set in stone. We posted the drafts, if you will, on the website. So obviously, some of you hopefully had an opportunity to look at them. This is a starting point …”
The draft ordinance also contained regulations for solar facilities and ground-mounted signs.
The Posey County Commission will eventually receive the ordinance and decide how to proceed. In the meantime, like all other local municipalities, they’ll rely on existing ordinances to govern any new projects until a specific ordinance is finally passed.
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