The Huron River winds through parks and wooded areas in eastern Ypsilanti Township where thousands of residents fish, canoe and swim. Now the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory want to add a 300,000-square-foot taxpayer-subsidized data center with a 20-acre electric substation to the landscape.
The proposal has ignited a controversy. Township leadership has accused the university of being deceptive about its plans for the $1.25 billion data center, and wants U-M to instead build it in an industrial area.
Meanwhile, a group of about 300 residents called Stop The Data Center does not want a data center anywhere in Ypsilanti Township. They oppose it over potential increases in utility bills, local water pollution, regional air emissions and the center’s national security role. They labeled the township’s plan to relocate the center near a low-income area as “environmental racism,” and have protested at township meetings and board members’ homes…