Author Archives: Ann Treacy

About Ann Treacy

Librarian who follows rural broadband in MN and good uses of new technology (blandinonbroadband.org), hosts a radio show on MN music (mostlyminnesota.com), supports people experiencing homelessness in Minnesota (elimstrongtowershelters.org) and helps with social justice issues through Women’s March MN.

Community raises concern about public notice for data center in Mountain Lake (Cottonwood County)

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KEYC reports…

A data center project from C-MN Data Centers Inc and AAIM Data Centers at 2203 3rd Avenue has drawn scrutiny in Mountain Lake after some members of the community have claimed there wasn’t enough public notice from the city.

The city said it had public hearings for the project’s conditional use permit back in 2025 on Oct. 20 and Nov. 6.

Faith Hall, a local nurse, claims many of her neighbors weren’t even aware that the project was moving forward after it was originally discussed.

Some views…

City Administrator Michael Mueller claims the project could have a lot of benefits.

“The data center is anticipated to provide long-term economic benefits by increasing the city’s tax base and supporting future investment in the city’s electric infrastructure. The additional utility revenue will help stabilize electric rates for residents and businesses while strengthening the reliability and capacity of the electric system,” Mueller said.

The city also expects the facility to generate $400,000 in annual gross margin for its electrical utility, which it claims could help halt climbing electricity rates.

Sawatzky is skeptical that increased electricity usage will lead to cheaper rates. …

Others like Brittany Winters are unsure if the potential benefits are worth the tradeoffs from noise and environmental pollution that a large data center might entail.

Faribault city still has questions about Environmental impact of proposed (and delayed) data center (Rice County)

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Faribault’s Daily News reports…

Archer’s data center development would use as much daily power as the entire City of St. Cloud, home to 68,000 residents, according to the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

But when the Faribault City Council voted to approve its Environmental Assessment Worksheet on Aug. 12, 2025, it was listed as using the same amount of power as a large warehouse.

“I don’t feel with full comfort stating that we were presented with everything,” City Councilor Mandy Barnes said.

The council voted on Tuesday to allow Archer to submit a revised EAW by March 2027 before its development can proceed. But the emissions are not the only discrepancies with the original draft.

Luke Norquist, a fellow for the MCEA and main litigant against Archer, said the company also failed to provide detail with its air pollution mitigation, generator usage, and noise pollution. In particular, Norquist said air quality pollution needed much more information.

School and libraries are working to preserve E-Rate funding

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Broadband Breakfast reports…

 A campaign to preserve the nation’s largest school and library broadband subsidy is intensifying.

Advocates have launched a coordinated effort to mobilize opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed changes to E-Rate, the $2.5 billion federal program that helps more than 100,000 schools and 11,000 libraries pay for broadband service. Supporters said the FCC’s proceeding, adopted June 25, poses the most serious threat to the program in decades.

Northfield considers broadband franchise fee as cable subscriptions decrease

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KYMN Radio reports…

As traditional cable television subscriptions continue to decline, Northfield officials are exploring a broadband franchise fee as a way to replace lost revenue that has historically funded the city’s communications efforts and reduced pressure on property taxes.

During a recent city council work session, City Administrator Ben Martig said cable franchise fees have long supported public communication infrastructure, including technology used to broadcast council meetings, maintain the city website, and provide information through social media and other public outreach channels. However, as residents increasingly move away from cable television services, the revenue generated by those fees has steadily declined.

Minnesota noted for using accessibility to improve maps’ communication

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Government Technology reports…

Governments are developing maps to share information on a variety of topics with the public, but there are necessary considerations to ensure these digital products are accessible for all users.

State and local governments are required by federal law to make digital products — including maps —usable for people with disabilities by April 2027 or April 2028 depending on population size. But they face litigation risks today if they are noncompliant.

The state of Minnesota has been focused on the accessibility of its online products and content for years. In 2019, Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) announced a significant effort to make maps accessible. MNIT has established a map accessibility resource center and made training modules available.

The article offers a few tips from the Minnesota experience:

  • When trying to create an accessible map, Ewert underlined the importance of first considering the intended message of the map.
  • Color is another key feature for GIS teams to address when creating these resources. Officials should use colors with high contrast and test with accessibility checkers, per MNIT’s resource center. Because maps often leverage aerial photography as backgrounds, Ewert emphasized the importance of simplifying base maps so that symbology effectively meets those contrast requirements to be visible for all users.
  • Accessibility testing is done before going live with new products in the state, Ewert said.
  • In some cases, AI technology can help government make products more accessible. For accessibility work, it’s critical to ensure AI models are using high-quality data.

Isanti City approves 30-month moratorium on hyperscale data centers (Isanti County)

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County News Review reports…

With the increase of proposed hyperscale data centers throughout the state, the Isanti City Council has approved a 30-month moratorium on them.

Isanti Mayor Luke Merrill said he added the discussion of data centers to the July 7 council agenda so the council has time to create policies to prevent data centers from coming to the city if that’s the direction the city council decides to take.

Following discussion, by a vote of 4-1 with Council Member Erika Zdon voting against, a motion was approved to put a 30-month moratorium on hypescale data centers within the city. While Zdon said she doesn’t want a data center coming to the city, she voiced concerns with how quickly the industry changes, and felt the council should wait to enact a moratorium.

 

Elk River data center developer withdraws application (Sherburne County)

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The Democrat Star reports…

The City of Elk River announced Tuesday that the data center developer who sought to open one in Elk River recently withdrawn their application.

The move comes after the Elk River City Council unanimously rejected a proposed zoning amendment at their July 6 meeting.

Elk River Capital LLC and Swervo Development had proposed converting a vacant, 62,000-square-foot former injection molding facility at 19178 Industrial Blvd. NW into a 33-megawatt data center. They had required Council approval of both a Zoning Ordinance amendment and a Conditional Use Permit to proceeding with their project.

Adams MultiMedia of East Central Minnesota chime in on data center discussion

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The Morrison County Record posts an editorial from Keith Anderson, director of news for Adams MultiMedia of East Central Minnesota…

Data centers, which have been around for years, are just now forcing their way into our lives thanks to massive proposals being flung at city councils and county boards across the nation, including Minnesota.

Data centers of old were certainly impressive, but the computational power to feed AI programs today requires even more energy now that an estimated 1.5 to 2 billion people worldwide have integrated AI into their daily lives.

Think back to the days when you entered a question into Google, and it popped out a series of potential resources you could peruse.

Now, our prompts into ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude are more comprehensive, such as, “Take this Excel spreadsheet of my 2025 budget and create a proposed budget for 2026 that also accounts for a 2% loss in retail sales through the first half of 2026; and offer five suggested correction plans that will help me recapture those lost sales in the second half of 2026; and show me specifically how to grow revenue by 3% for the remainder of the year by using AI?”

These are complicated queries by people like you and me who are seeking solutions to real-world problems. And the uses of AI by government agencies, such as the Pentagon, which has created thousands of digital AI agents to assist staff with tedious administrative duties, and to simulate situations the U.S. and allies might encounter on the battlefield, require extensive computing power 24 hours a day. According to the latest estimates, private sector consumption of AI power stands at roughly 80%, while government use could be as high as 20%. This thirst has ushered in a sea of data center proposals across the land, some as large as 2, 3, or 4 million square feet.

Can’t quite picture what that looks like? The Mall of America is roughly 5.6 million square feet across four levels.

The sheer size of some data center proposals is enough to give any of us pause. Toss in the unknowns about energy use, water consumption to cool processors, aesthetic impact, proximity to residential areas, loss of industrial space for other possible future tenants, and lack of transparency about the proposals in some cases, and you have the outline for opposition.

Apple Valley enacts one-year data center moratorium (Dakota County)

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Sun This Week reports...

The city of Apple Valley on July 9 joined a growing list of Minnesota cities that have enacted one-year moratoriums on new data center development.

The City Council approved the pause on proposals for data centers, which are large buildings that hold computer servers. The sites can range from several thousand up to 2.5 million square feet as currently under scrutiny in Farmington.

The cities of Eagan, Rosemount, Inver Grove Heights, Elk River and Minneapolis are among those enacting data center moratoriums similar to the Apple Valley ordinance.

Apple Valley’s data center debate included the City Council’s denial in March of a conditional use permit that could have accommodated a concept for up to five data center buildings with 1 million square feet.

The city says it needs the moratorium to study the planning, development and regulation of data centers. After the study is complete, staff will make recommendations on any new restrictions and/or new regulations.

A look at the new FCC strategic plan compared to the previous plan

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Benton Institute for Broadband & Society does a nice comparison to the current and most recent FCC strategic plans…

Every few years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tells Congress and the public what it intends to do with its authority. The agency’s strategic plan is not a rulemaking and creates no legal obligations, but it is the framework around which the FCC builds its annual performance plan and budget request to Congress. The strategic plan also serves as the yardstick against which the agency’s own annual performance reports—and outside overseers like the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)—measure whether the FCC did what it said it would do.

The FCC’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2026–2030, issued July 6, 2026, deserves a close read alongside the plan it replaces—the Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2022–2026, which has been pulled down from the FCC’s website. Read side by side, the two documents describe two very different agencies. The 2022 plan, created when Jessica Rosenworcel served as FCC Chairwoman, organized the FCC around bringing “affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to 100 percent of the country,” with universal service, equity, and consumer protection as pillars. The 2026 plan organizes the FCC around Chairman Brendan Carr’s “Build America Agenda,” with spectrum auctions, deregulation, and national security as pillars—and with affordability, low-income Americans, and digital equity almost entirely absent from the text.

For state broadband officials administering federally funded deployment programs, the new plan signals how the FCC intends to use its maps, its coordination role, and its permitting authority over the next five years. For digital equity practitioners, the plan confirms that the FCC no longer organizes itself around affordability and retains an adoption metric without any strategy behind it. For researchers and policymakers, the plan’s performance metrics—far more specific and quantified than in the prior plan—will define what “success” means in the agency’s own annual reporting through 2030. And for anyone tracking the constitutional status of independent agencies, the new plan contains a quiet but significant change in how the FCC describes itself.

The article goes on to detail specifics, from different perspectives.

U of M Extension creates AI video to spoof cover crop research

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Back when I did more training on how to assess information on the Internet, I would often use an example from a Minnesota university that was a website that featured a mythical town outside of Mankato where, due to geological anomalies, the weather never went below 70 degrees. It got a lot of attention in 1996 as a great example of “not everything you read online it true.” So, I was tickled to see that University of Minnesota Extension has taken up a similar project in the new era of AI. Ag Week reports…

A YouTube video titled “Scientists Tested 41 Cover Crop Mixes for 6 Years” claims a University of Minnesota research team ran a six-season trial and found one three-species cover crop mix that outperformed every other combination by 210%. The 49-minute video, posted May 6 by a channel called Soil & Centuries, says the team tracked nitrogen transfer rates, mycorrhizal network density and weed suppression across hundreds of thousands of data points.

None of it happened. The study does not exist.

University of Minnesota Extension educators said the video is artificial intelligence “slop” — fabricated content built to draw clicks and advertising revenue. They have reported it, and commented on it, but it’s still up. As of mid-July, the video had more than 36,000 views. It had roughly 11,000 when Extension educators first learned of it.

Here’s the video:

Lino Lakes City Council holds preliminary discussion on data centers (Anoka County)

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Quad Community Press reports…

The Lino Lakes City Council recently held a preliminary discussion about the possibility of exploring policy options related to data centers within the city’s commercial and industrial zoning districts.

The idea for the preliminary discussion was brought forward by Council Member Randy Rennaker.

“We don’t want to be a position where the tail is wagging the dog,” Rennaker said. “Right now, we have the ability to look at this from a broad view and, perhaps, put things in place where we can decide what we want to have on property in our city.”

A heads up to folks in the areas. And a different kind of heads up to communities in a similar position.

Kenyon Leader looks at local leaders’ thoughts on data centers

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The Kenyon Leader posts views from several local elected officials on data centers…

Data centers have become one of the most contentious issues across the nation, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle raising concerns about water use, energy consumption and transparency as more projects are proposed across southern Minnesota.

Rep. Keith Allen (R-Kenyon) said he has heard a wide range of perspectives from constituents. Some see data centers as an economic development opportunity that can bring investment and expand the local tax base, while others have raised questions about energy demand, water usage, land use and the long-term impact on communities.

Here are abbreviated views, with the caveat that the article flashes them out more…

From Rep. Keith Allen (R-Kenyon)

Regarding the Faribault project, which is currently paused following a Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling, Allen said it is important to respect the judicial process and allow the legal issues to work their way through the courts.

“More broadly, I think communities deserve transparency and meaningful opportunities for input when projects of this scale are proposed,” Allen said. “At the same time, Minnesota should remain competitive for investment and economic growth. The challenge is finding the right balance between development, local concerns and economic opportunity.”

From Sen. Bill Lieske (R-Lonsdale)

The biggest concerns, Lieske said, are energy consumption and water consumption. Higher energy demand can lead to higher energy costs as utilities build new infrastructure to keep up, while water use raises questions about impacts on private wells and nearby waterways.

From Lonsdale Mayor Tom Berg

Lonsdale Mayor Tom Berg testified in front of the Legislature earlier this year to advocate in support of making it illegal for public officials to sign NDAs.

From Rep. Kristi Pursell (DFL-Northfield)

Rep. Kristi Pursell (DFL-Northfield) said she has focused on water usage because of her expertise in that area, as the former executive director of Clean River Partners. She noted that data centers have been “deeply unpopular” in Farmington, where residents have organized against a proposed project.

Planners share proposed data center development application with City of Monticello

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The Monticello Times reports…

For months, Monticello residents have debated what a proposed data center might mean for the community. Now they can finally see what the developer is planning.

Monticello Tech LLC submitted its long-awaited development application Monday, and the city released the application package publicly Wednesday.

Hundreds of pages of applications, engineering reports and technical studies outline a campus of up to 3 million square feet spread across as many as eight buildings on roughly 547 acres south of 85th Street NE and east of Highway 25.

If approved, the project would be supported by nearly $46 million in new infrastructure improvements, years of phased construction and an extensive public review process before construction could begin.

While many details remain conceptual and will be refined through future site plan review, the application materials outline the campus’s anticipated size, infrastructure needs, water and power demands, environmental impacts and long-term development timeline.

Here are some of the details…

If fully built, the campus could encompass up to 3 million square feet of data center space spread across as many as eight buildings. That’s roughly equivalent to more than 50 football fields of enclosed building space. About 372 acres would be devoted to data center development, with the remaining land reserved for wetlands, stormwater management, landscaping, buffers, open space and related uses.

The proposal would not be built all at once. Instead, construction is expected to occur sequentially over approximately four to eight years, beginning in the north and northeast portions of the property before progressing south and west as demand warrants.

Many of the details residents have asked about — including final building footprints, architectural design, utility routing and mechanical equipment — remain undetermined because an end user has not yet been identified. The application says those elements would be finalized through future site plan and building permit reviews.

Building a campus of that scale would require extensive new infrastructure, much of which does not currently exist at the site.

Utility plans call for extending municipal water and sewer service from the existing system near 85th Street and Edmonson Avenue through a combination of city-led and developer-funded improvements. According to the application, those extensions would ultimately serve the proposed campus while also creating capacity for future development in the surrounding area.

Application documents estimate those public improvements — including streets, sanitary sewer, water mains and storm sewer infrastructure — at approximately $45.9 million, including construction, contingency and indirect costs. The applicant says those costs would be borne by the developer or future data center operator rather than the city.

The City of Monticello has a webpage dedicated to updates related to data center in the area, including past and upcoming public meetings.

Nicollet County Commissioners place one-year moratorium on data centers

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The St Peter Herald reports…

The Nicollet County Board of Commissioners is pausing development of data centers as county staff look to study how their environmental impacts and energy consumption may affect local infrastructure and nearby residents.

The year-long moratorium, approved July 14, prohibits the construction of large-scale data centers and applications to build them while county staff draft study their impact and zoning regulations tailored to the facilities.

In a public hearing Tuesday morning, Nicollet County Zoning Administrator John Zehnder, told the commissioners that data centers raise a number of issues that could prove problematic for county land if left unregulated. Their demands on the energy grid and hefty consumption of water, plus their potential for heat generation and noise could have potential impacts that Zehnder said the current zoning ordinance is unequipped to handle.

Zehnder recommended the county approve a 12-month moratorium on data center applications while Nicollet County staff develop new regulations specific to data centers. A year is the maximum length of time the county can pause data center development while evaluating changes to the zoning code.