Published: December 09, 2009 10:14 am      

Data center plan draws opposition

Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator — Midwest ISO — wants to build a 73,000-square-feet building on 17 acres north of Elizaville for a data center, backup control room and disaster recovery area.

First, Midwest ISO needs the land rezoned, and will ask for that change at a 7 p.m. Wednesday meeting of the Boone County Area Plan Commission, to be in the Boone County Office Annex, 116 W. Washington St., Lebanon.

It’s a bad idea on a bad site, Cecil Gosser, Jr., said Friday afternoon as he stood along rutted County Road 450 East, showing a reporter a sketch of the proposed center.

Midwest ISO governs the distribution of electricity to 13 Midwestern states and Manitoba from a building at 720 City Center Drive in Carmel.

Richard Yost, a spokesman for Midwest ISO, said Friday afternoon he would try to get a message to someone who could answer questions about the proposed facility. More details will be published when available.

According to Midwest ISO’s planning application, in normal circumstances, about 10 persons would work at the center, manning shifts around the clock all year long.

But, if a “catastrophic event” shut down Midwest ISO’s Carmel headquarters, up to 300 persons would use the center.

Gosser and other neighbors are not happy Midwest ISO has chosen a Clinton Township cattle pasture for the backup center’s location.

Neither is the Boone County Area Plan Commission staff, which will recommend the APC reject Midwest ISO’s request to change the land’s zoning from agriculture to professional business.

Zoning changes must be approved by the Boone County Commissioners. The APC should give the request an unfavorable recommendation, according to an APC staff report.

Gosser said when he and others met with Midwest ISO officials Tuesday, they were given copies of a “revised” description of the data center.

There are many reasons the site is inadequate, Gosser said:

• There are neither water nor sanitary sewer lines to the property;

• Midwest ISO said it would need fiber-optic lines for the center’s telephones and computers; the closest such service runs from Kirklin to Mechanicsburg, well north of the proposed location;

• Midwest ISO would drill wells for the center, but some neighbors have already had to replace wells at least once, and others are “pumping sand”;

• The county’s master plan, which was written over nearly 10 years, expressly declares the area to be suitable only for agriculture and

• Funding for the facility would include “an appropriation from the Boone County Council.”

According to the APC’s staff report, Midwest ISO would install a septic system for the center, but the pasture’s soil types — Crosby and Fincastle silt loam — are “very restricted” for the minimum staff the agency proposes.

“These soils are also very limited for supporting a small commercial building,” the APC staff report said.