PIQUA — People in a Miami Valley community are protesting against a data center development on Tuesday.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 6:00, a regular Piqua City Commission meeting started at 5 p.m. with the commissioners going into executive session.
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At the same time, a group of about two dozen people protested the planned data center.
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Ohio is the 5th in the country for the number of data centers, according to DataCenterMap.com.
In the Miami Valley, Amazon is building a data center in Sidney.
And a proposal is in the works for another one in Wilmington.
There’s also a data center planned for Piqua.
But as News Center 7 previously reported, we don’t know the company behind that project because of a non-disclosure agreement the I-Team discovered.
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Just last month, the Urbana City Council voted to pause a data center project.
As News Center 7 previously reported, Piqua’s City Commission has already approved the data center in its community.
But protestors said they want their commissioners to change their minds.
“It would be wonderful if we could have a moratorium put in place that would pause any sort of development. We would like environmental impact studies done, and a lot of those things are happening around the state, so we are hopeful that perhaps our voice will be heard. We would just really like them to abandon the project. We don’t want this here,” Alisha Lange, of Piqua, said.
“I don’t believe anything that (Piqua City Commission is) saying in their presentation. I know our electric rates are gonna go up. I know water rates are going to go up, plus it’s noisy, and we just don’t want it. It may be a done deal, but we just want to express our disgust,” Rich Spraggs, of Piqua, said.
News Center 7’s John Bedell reached out to the city about the planned demonstration.
“The City is aware of the planned demonstration outside the Municipal Government Complex. We respect and support the right for residents to peacefully assemble and express their views. Our priority is the safety of participants, employees and the public. Piqua Police Department encourages everyone involved to follow local laws and remain respectful so the event can proceed safely,” a spokesperson with the city said.
News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
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