Amazon data center

After Microsoft announced it won't seek property tax breaks for its data centers, four St. Joseph County Council members have asked Amazon to renegotiate their $4 billion property tax abatement over 35 years.

Now that Microsoft has announced a national policy of forgoing local property tax breaks for its data centers, four of the St. Joseph County Council's five Republicans have sent Amazon Web Services a letter asking it to renegotiate the 35-year, $4 billion property tax abatement it's receiving from the county for its New Carlisle data center under development.

The St. Joseph County Drainage Board on Tuesday indefinitely tabled a request from Amazon to drain 640 acres to build the foundation for their next set of data shells. Farmers worry that the Niezpodziany Ditch and its receiving river, the Kankakee, can't handle the 35 million gallons of water a day that would be discharged from the dewatering.

Statewide advocates for electric ratepayers and the environment came to Granger Wednesday night to talk about the data center that Microsoft will start building this summer. They urged Microsoft to be more transparent and they called on St. Joseph County officials to watch out for constituents as they negotiate a development agreement.

St. Joseph County Council member Amy Drake says the county gave Amazon too many incentives and tax breaks for its data center near New Carlisle, so she's glad Microsoft won't seek a property tax abatement when it starts building a data center near Granger this year.

A St. Joseph County Council committee will consider new restrictions on low-frequency sound, the kind we feel rather than hear, that's emitted by industrially zoned operations like data centers.