IDEM holds public meeting concerning air permit request from Michigan City data center

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. -- The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is hosting a public meeting Tuesday night concerning the Project Maize data center.

It's being built right now after receiving tax abatements from the city council in September, but the latest development comes after the company behind the project filed an air permit application to IDEM last month.

The company behind that application is titled in documents as Lavendar Fields Holdings LLC, which is a suspected shell corporation for a big tech company.

The application includes a request to install 70 diesel-fired emergency generators; 66 large ones and 4 smaller ones with no pollution, exhausted outdoors through stacks.

IDEM's Office of Air Quality issues this specific type of permit to regulate and monitor operations which release air pollutants.

At the request of many concerned citizens, IDEM planned the public meeting to take public comment while reviewing the permit application.

Ashley Williams, a Michigan City resident near the proposed site and a leader in environmental advocacy, is seeking transparency about the project on top of a mounting list of environmental and health concerns.

"Why is a 2025 build, a 2025 data center using dirty diesel backup generators? It is unheard of and deplorable. We don't even know the type of engines that they will be potentially polluting us and poisoning us with. In the very least we deserve to know that," says Ashley Williams, Executive Director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana. " I hope that folks are really going to come in and be critical and ask questions and say "No, that doesn't add up. And I'm going to keep investigating, I'm going to keep showing up.' "

IDEM says they will issue a Notice of Decision stating whether the permit has been issued or denied at some point following the meeting.

It's unclear how long it will take for IDEM to make that decision.