No more power plants in poor neighborhoods

Call the Deep Green “data center” what it is: a power plant in a poor neighborhood.

The community learned only recently that the proposed project at “220 S. Larch Street and 3 adjoining parcels” would rely upon fuel cell technology (“New Details Emerge About New Data Center,” LSJ 2/5/26).  The US Department of Energy writes “A fuel cell uses the chemical energy of hydrogen or other fuels to cleanly and efficiently produce energy” (energy.gov). Setting aside arguments about whether the process really is “clean” or “efficient,” it is clear that fuel cells are used to produce energy, such as electricity or heat.  Fuel cells “provide power,” as the DOE states.

The UK start-up Deep Green wants to situate a power plant in our urban core, in a neighborhood with one of the lowest tree equity scores in the city of Lansing.  Lack of tree canopy goes hand in hand with poverty.  Supporters of the “data center” call this area “vacant” and “derelict,” erasing material realities of that specific part of the city, which, yes, is a neighborhood. The “vacant parking lot” is perhaps a vestige of the historic removal and partition of residential communities surrounding downtown Lansing. Engineering and urban planning projects, like the creation of Interstate 496, forced people to give up their homes for those downtown parking lots.

Close to the land Deep Green wants to buy, “affordable housing” is appearing. Many children will live in these developments. Look up Bloom Energy, the company hired to provide fuel cells to Deep Green. Pay attention to its record of environmental violations.  We cannot allow this kind of industrial activity among children. City and BWL leaders and Deep Green representatives brush off resident concerns about an environmental impact study.  Absent this information, the city council is set to vote on the future of this project and the livability of the city without taking into account the potential impacts to the environment and ramifications on human health.  

At the recent Westside Neighborhood Association meeting, panel representatives from Deep Green, BWL, city council and the city planning commission pointed to luxury apartments in the Stadium District. They implied that residents will be equally impacted across demographics, as if to say, “look who lives there, too, it can’t be that bad.” But you cannot compare living in a luxury loft apartment to living on Kalamazoo Street at ground level, in an 80+ year-old wood-framed home with drafty wood-frame windows and no insulation.   Closer to the intersection of Cedar and Kalamazoo Streets, where the architecture changes and resources lessen, the urban experience is different.  The neighborhood around the parcel of land targeted for data center development now also faces front-line exposure to the environmental effects of power production.

Deep Green’s application was halted for a few weeks due to procedural inconsistencies.  It was important to identify these issues, but the pause was only ever a temporary fix.  We must continue to expose the profound, fundamental and recurring environmental injustices upon which this proposal depends, and which it will perpetuate.  Stopping Deep Green is a step towards ending this cycle.

Our city council must deny the sale of property to Deep Green, or any other company that requires industrial zoning.  City council must also deny the recent flurry of zoning change requests attempting to create spots of increased industrial activity in the midst of residential neighborhoods close to downtown Lansing.  City leaders would be well-served by reviewing the archive, most especially the Design Lansing 2012 Comprehensive Plan, for a reminder of the city’s stated obligations to the people. 

Every city council member should vote no to data centers in our city.  Let’s mark a new era in the city of Lansing, one guided by the principles of environmental justice and equity. 

Sheila Marie Contreras is a university English professor specializing in Mexican-American/Chicanx and US Latinx literatures. She lives in Lansing.