Google data center vote postponed in Hermantown following two hours of protests
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Following two hours of nonstop chanting and protests, the Hermantown City Council on Monday night postponed a series of votes on whether to give final local approval to a controversial proposed Google data center just outside Duluth.
It’s the latest indication of just how contentious proposed data centers have become in Minnesota and across the nation in advance of the midterm election, as tech giants rush to build the giant computer server farms that are needed to power artificial intelligence.
The drama began just before the council meeting was scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Hundreds of people had crammed into Hermantown’s city hall to attend the special meeting. Most couldn’t squeeze into the small council chambers and instead were routed to a large overflow room.
Dozens of people lined up to sign up to speak. But many were still in line when the sign-up ended before the meeting was scheduled to begin.
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Nearly 100 people began chanting “Let us speak!” outside the council chambers. After a half-hour of nonstop chanting, protesters began shouting “Shut it down!”
They sat down on the floor, never stopping the chants. People began distributing water bottles and snacks.
After two hours, city leaders announced the meeting would be postponed until Tuesday, and they said people had 10 minutes to disperse or they would be arrested. Protesters erupted in cheers.
“It was really moving to see people so passionate about their communities, about their environment, about the public process,” said Sarah Lofald, a board member with the grassroots group Stop the Hermantown Data Center. “And it was really moving to see them practice their right to free speech and practice their right to peacefully protest.”
But others who were there to support the project spoke out against the disruption, including many union members advocating for the hundreds of construction jobs the data center would create.
“We support the ability for citizens to be heard but the behaviors that were displayed this evening were designed to close down the meeting,” said Jack Carlson, president of the Duluth Building Trades Council, and Kim Parmeter, Hermantown Chamber of Commerce president, in a joint statement.
‘Let the process move forward’
Hermantown assistant city administrator Joe Wicklund said city officials decided to postpone the meeting because they couldn’t guarantee a safe event.
“This has certainly been a polarizing issue, and no matter where folks have fallen on either side of it, we’ve had really neighborly meetings until this evening,” Wicklund said.
“There were a lot of new faces here tonight that certainly made this an unsafe, unneighborly environment,” he added.
Wicklund didn’t give details on what the city will do differently Tuesday night, but said he hoped a 24-hour pause would help ease tensions.
Over the past few weeks Google has made several changes to its proposed 1.7 million square foot data center campus in a rural corner of this small northeastern Minnesota city.
The company dropped its pursuit of up to $80 million in property tax breaks in exchange for making the investment. The first phase alone is expected to cost $650 million and take up to 8 years to build.
“It’d be like building three to four of the new Essentia hospital,” a billion-dollar project recently completed in Duluth, said Carlson with the Duluth Building Trades Council. “This is going to be able to carry our members for years and years to come.”
The city estimates it will receive $3 million annually in tax revenues from the project. St. Louis County will receive an estimated $4 million. The data center is projected to generate about $240 million in property tax revenues for the region over 20 years.
Google has also agreed to monitor groundwater in the area and find new water supplies for landowners if their wells are impacted by the development. The company has also committed to a plan to decommission the data center if it’s abandoned for any reason. Google officials say it would be the first agreement of its kind for the company.
Google has also pledged to pay for wind turbines and battery storage to help offset its electricity use. The project is expected to use about 500 megawatts of electricity.
For context, that’s enough electricity to power about 400,000 typical American homes, said Annie Levenson-Falk, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota.
“That is as many households as the total number of households in Minnesota’s four largest cities: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and Rochester combined,” she said. “So that is a mind-breakingly large number.”
Minnesota law requires data center developers to pay for the cost of their electric service. Levenson-Falk wants to make sure none of those costs are passed on to ratepayers.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission still needs to sign off on an electric supply agreement between Google and Minnesota Power. That vote is expected early next year.
Several lawsuits have also been filed against the proposal by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Stop the Hermantown Data Center and a private landowner. A hearing on one of those suits challenging the project’s environmental review was scheduled for Tuesday.
While opponents have raised a variety of concerns, ranging from impacts on wetlands and nearby trout streams to noise pollution to impacts on property values, many residents are most incensed by what they view as a secretive public process that helped hide the development during its early stages.
Several local officials signed nondisclosure agreements preventing them from discussing the issue. It only became public last year following public records requests.
The issue has inspired three candidates to run for Hermantown City Council in next week’s election.
