Bemidji considers data center moratorium with possible code updates

BEMIDJI — The city of Bemidji is contemplating a one-year moratorium on data centers, months after inaccurate reports claiming a project was underway there.

As Big Tech rolls out plans to build enormous data center complexes in Minnesota, like Google in Hermantown and Meta in Rosemount, at least a dozen local governments have pumped the brakes on new development via moratoriums.

Large scale data centers in other parts of the country, such as northern Virginia and Arizona, have come under public scrutiny over their local impacts. Some data center campuses cover hundreds or thousands of acres. Local residents often point to the data centers' high consumption of electricity and water as the underlying cause of their increased electric and water bills for their homes and businesses.

Bemidji Assistant Planning Director Melissa Fahrenbruch said Monday, Aug. 10, that no developer has yet approached the city for a data center.

But she said a pause on the development of any data centers or cryptomining facilities would allow staff time to update the city's planning and zoning codes.

"We do want to make sure that we are protecting the health and safety of our community," Fahrenbruch said.

In February, a news report from WCCO included Bemidji on a list of places where data centers were being considered. KAXE independently verified the claim and determined it was inaccurate.

While no formal action was taken in Monday's Planning Board meeting, members agreed to vote on a moratorium in September.

Paul Bunyan Communications already operates a small-scale data center on its Bemidji campus.

Some board members, like Bemidji Mayor Jorge Prince, wanted to be sure a similar data center would be permitted under a moratorium.

He said that he would be in favor of a data center moratorium with a definition specifying large data centers.

"Do I want to encumber somebody that's trying to recreate a model that already exists in our town and has been proven and hasn't been a threat to anybody? No, I don't want to do that," Prince said.

All six Bemidji City Council members serve on the Planning Board, with Ward 5 councilmember Lynn Eaton serving as the chair.

Eaton is retired but has decades of experience as a civil engineer.

 “The consumption of resources is what concerns me. I understand that some are being built now that generate their own electricity using gas and use enormous amounts of gas," he said. "It's a huge carbon footprint.”

Mark Dickinson, the Ward 3 representative with decades of real estate experience, expressed doubts that Bemidji even has the real estate to support a data center within city limits.

"Generally speaking, I'd be against a moratorium," he said. "We're just kicking the can down the road."

Ward 1 councilmember Gwenia Fiskevold Gould expressed her support for the moratorium, commenting that Bemidji has a responsibility to set a high precedent, being the first city on the Mississippi River.

"There is a lawsuit that alleges that some of these data centers have contributed to dangerously polluted nitrate levels in Oregon groundwater," she said. "If that kind of thing happened here, it doesn't stay here. It's going to happen to the rest of our cities down the Mississippi."

To the east, Carlton County is slated to host a public hearing on its proposed data center moratorium on Monday, Aug. 24.

The Bemidji Planning Board typically meets on the second Monday of the month and is slated to reconvene at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 14.