Data Centers Are Reshaping Local Politics in the Great Lakes

Soon, Green, along with a few other community members, created the Livingston County Residents for Responsible Development. According to the group’s mission statement it organizes in support of economic initiatives “that allow for prosperity without irreparable costs to our water, our land, our neighbors, and the character of our rural community.”

Across the Great Lakes region, data center proposals have exploded in the past year as builders seek to tap into the region’s fresh water supply and reap the benefits of newly implemented tax breaks. In January 2025, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed into law exemptions for “enterprise” data centers from sales and use taxes on their equipment through at least 2050. To qualify, data center operators (such as Google, Meta and Microsoft) must invest at least $250 million and create 30 jobs paying 150% of the local median wage. The law also created new exemptions for data center facilities located on a redeveloping brownfield (an abandoned property that was once the site of a hazardous substance or pollutant) or on former industrial power plant sites.

Michigan’s law stipulates certain environmental regulations, including sourcing 90% of a data center’s energy usage from renewable energy sources, while it “encourages” other standards like supporting local watershed restoration efforts and energy efficiency practices.

But residents, particularly in rural communities, have grown concerned as data centers use large amounts of water, raise electricity bills and promise economic benefits that may never materialize.

In Howell Township, Green says the landowner of the proposed data center site initially wouldn’t give her much information about the company behind the project. Secrecy proliferates in data center projects across the country, including elected officials who work with data center owners and sign NDAs that keep the public they serve in the dark and heavily redacted documents released to the public that often hide project details.

Documents leaked to Planet Detroit first disclosed Randee LLC and Stantec Consulting Michigan Inc. as the project developers. Meta, the parent company for Facebook and Instagram, was later reported as the hyperscaler behind the project. Public records show that DTE Energy, the largest energy provider in Michigan, pressured Howell Township to move through with the project quickly.

In November, Howell Township approved a six-month moratorium on data center projects after about 800 residents attended a Howell Township Board meeting. Large crowds have shown up at Howell Township meetings in part because of organizing efforts by the Livingston County Residents for Responsible Development group, which helped spread the word about town meetings.

Then in December, the group organized an event to educate residents on the impact of data centers on small towns. The speaker lineup included University of Michigan assistant professor Ben Green, an expert in AI regulation who last year co-authored a University of Michigan report “What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?” On February 4, Green spoke before the Michigan State House Subcommittee on Oversight, where he urged its members to repeal the tax breaks that data center companies get in Michigan. “Data centers require incredible amounts of electricity, and this is straining the power grid in the regions where data centers are located,” Green told the subcommittee.

In a series of town meetings throughout the fall, residents repeatedly lined up to give their public comments, overwhelmingly in opposition to rezoning farmland for the data center project. Residents pointed to a lack of clarity about the proposed data center’s water use. Some observed that the proposal violated Howell Township’s master charter and future land use plan that states agricultural land is “intended to remain rural” with limited infrastructure development.

Lauren Prebenda, a lead organizer with Livingston County Residents for Responsible Development, told the commission in September:

We’ve witnessed numerous corporations exploit and pillage Michigan’s natural resources for their own gain … history shows that we cannot rely on a corporation’s goodwill or on being a good neighbor to do what’s right for Michigan residents. And based on the applicants’ lack of transparency and their vague unsubstantiating claims … regarding the impact and details of this potential project, that’s exactly what they’re asking us to do. And I say, ‘No.’ ”

The planning commission voted against recommending the data center project to the county.

On December 8, the developer of the Howell data center site announced they would be withdrawing their rezoning application. However, the Livingston County Residents for Responsible Development said in a statement they believe the withdrawal is a tactical pause: “Residents spoke up—that’s what made a difference—but it’s clear the developer will return as soon as they believe they’ve influenced the process in their favor or changed the Board’s mind.”

Green says that Howell residents from across the political spectrum became united in their opposition to the data center project. “People who have a tremendous amount of money and power are pitting us against each other over stuff that doesn’t matter, and we’re able to come together despite that.”

Data centers become political fault line

Howell Township is far from alone.

On December 16, residents from across Michigan gathered at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing to protest data center developments. At the protest, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel held up a poster with heavily redacted information from DTE Energy’s plan to provide electricity to a proposed data center near Saline Township, south of Ann Arbor. If the proposal succeeds, DTE Energy would supply 1.4 gigawatts of power to the project, enough electricity to power over 1 million homes.

Data center pushback at the local level has filtered up to statewide political office, including a bill to repeal the tax breaks for data center construction. A Michigan house oversight committee has planned several hearings on the impact of data centers on local communities. As midterm elections near, Michigan candidates have staked out their positions on data centers. Jocelyn Benson, Democratic candidate for governor and whose husband is a vice president at the company behind the Saline Township data center, is supportive of data center projects. Mike Duggan, running for governor as an independent, is in favor of adopting statewide zoning standards for data centers.

Demand for new data centers has spiked as artificial intelligence becomes a constant presence in everyday life, whether consumers like it or not. Conducting a search query with AI tools like ChatGPT uses significantly more energy resources than a conventional search on Google. A report by the International Energy Agency estimates that global electricity consumption by data centers will double by 2030.

AI chatbots are not without controversy. Reports of college students using the tools to write essays has sparked frustration in professors across the country. Elon Musk’s Grok, X’s built-in chatbot developed by xAI, a company also owned by Musk, has become a vessel for misinformation and abuse, whether from its praise of Adolf Hitler and use of antisemitic tropes to users or its ability to generate deepfake sexualized images of children and women.

A February 2025 study conducted by the BBC found that AI assistants consistently create factual inaccuracies and misrepresent news events. On December 9, WIRED reported that OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has become reluctant to publish research on the economic downsides of AI.

Hyperscale data centers, the largest data centers, can use one to five million gallons of water per day. Adding such large water consumers to existing municipal systems can place a strain on water access to residential customers and impact groundwater supplies, says Helena Volzer, a water policy expert at the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Some data center plans are rushed through without conducting independent impact studies on water use. “Without that informed decision making about where it is sustainable to cite these facilities, I think that’s really problematic,” she says. “And that’s why we need more of those regional demand type studies to inform site selection.”

In November, a data center proposal in rural Kalkaska County, Michigan sparked swift backlash from residents. At a community meeting, residents overwhelmingly opposed the proposal, and Rocklocker LLC, the company behind the proposal, dropped the proposal due to community opposition.

The Kalkaska proposal was unusual. Rocklocker LLC, a carbon sequestration company, didn’t have the backing of a data center builder or an AI company. Unlike data center proposals elsewhere in Michigan and other states, Rocklocker brought the proposal directly to the community, rather than shrouding the proposal behind closed-doors and NDAs before bringing the project to public attention.

At the December Howell Township board meeting, resident Cory Alchin spoke about the successful pushback to the project: “You guys are engaged, you care, and it matters you’re here over and over again.”

Port Washington

In Port Washington, Wisconsin, a data center proposal attracted national attention after police dragged a woman out of a public hearing after she went five seconds over her allotted speaking time.

Michael Beaster, a Port Washington resident and member of Great Lakes Neighbors United, says the proposal will only financially benefit Vantage Data Centers, OpenAI, and Oracle, the companies behind the proposal dubbed the “Lighthouse Campus.” The proposal would put the town on the hook for a $90 million electrical substation, which the town doesn’t currently need. “It’s pretty difficult to make the argument that this is benefiting other industries or other residents in the city,” he says.

Beaster says that Port Washington officials had previously signed NDAs for a microchip factory proposal, which ultimately did not come to fruition. The Port Washington data center project is proposed to be built on the same land as the microchip factory proposal. In December, Beaster said he’d been waiting for nearly two months on an open records request from the town to confirm whether officials have signed NDAs regarding the data center proposal. Wisconsin Watch later reported that Port Washington town officials did not sign NDAs.

The Lighthouse Campus is slated to use a closed loop water cooling system, which means the water is continually re-cooled, although water-use projection numbers are unknown. 

Previously, Beaster had considered Ozaukee Press, the local newspaper, to be fair in their coverage of local events. But in the past several months, Beaster says Vantage has advertised its Port Washington project heavily in the Ozaukee Press, and he doesn’t believe the paper is covering the proposal and community pushback with neutrality. “There’s a lot of older folks in the community who still get their news from there,” says Beaster. “So they’re seeing a distorted version of events.”

Construction on the Port Washington data center began in December. Frustrated by the outcome, Great Lakes Neighbors United have begun an effort to recall the Port Washington mayor.

In Michigan, concerns about local impacts of data centers have sparked alarm in some state officials. Three bills were introduced to the state legislature to place guardrails on the data center industry, including one to ban the construction of facilities that would use over 2 million gallons of water per day.

“We have to remind people that people are the most important thing. And that the power is with the people,” says Green. “And people we elect, their job is to represent us. It’s not their job to push their agenda, it’s their job to represent us.”

Miles MacClureMore by this author →

Miles MacClure is a writer based in Traverse City, Michigan.