A Petition was filed on Friday, October 17, 2025, with the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board (EQB). This was the document some of you signed at our first meeting last Sunday, or sometime thereafter.
For context, the City of Hermantown published a draft Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) for 30-day comment on August 5, 2025, regarding 403 acres in the southwest portion of Hermantown. Comments were accepted through September 4, 2025.
The City of Hermantown, as the “Responsible Governmental Unit” (RGU) completed the AUAR, a hybrid of the environmental assessment worksheet (EAW) and environmental impact statement (EIS).
The draft AUAR, published on August 5, 2025, DID NOT identify the development as a data center.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency commented the following:
“The development scenario will result in significant physical changes to the property (2.3 million cubic yards of excavation over 184 acres), but the AUAR lacks an adequate level of detail to evaluate the actual and potential environmental impacts and resulting effects created by the development. It is at the environmental review phase where important details such as site design, layout and scale are necessary to consider the project impacts in totality. Without these details, a greater burden is placed on permitting aspects, which typically examine the different components in isolation, rather than from an integrated perspective that environmental review provides.”
(See Appendix F- Hermantown Industrial Draft AUAR Comments and RGU Responses to Comments)
The Hermantown City Council formally approved the final AUAR, that DID NOT identify the development as a data center, at the City Council Meeting on October 6, 2025.
The City’s approval of the final AUAR on October 6, 2025, paved the way for the re-zone of the land to be approved at the next City Council Meeting on October 20, 2025, future permitting.
The Petition filed on Friday requests that a formal EAW be conducted by the RGU (City of Hermantown). The EQB has five business days to review the Petition to determine if it is complete.
2. If the Petition is deemed complete, the EQB will assign the Petition to an RGU who will then be responsible for making a decision on the need for an EAW.
The Stop the Hermantown Data Center has now been incorporated with the Minnesota Secretary of State. Requests for an EIN and non-profit status are pending.
In the interim, a Venmo account has been set up for donations. All donations will be monitored, tracked and documented for the purpose of accounting and tax purposes. Donations can be made via: Venmo @StoptheHermantownDataCenter or by cash or check at tomorrow’s meeting.
3. LEGAL ACTION
We have made initial contact with an attorney who is in the process of reviewing this matter for possible legal action. We will update as we learn more.
4. ADVOCACY
Numerous individuals have been involved in ongoing advocacy efforts, including purchasing and making signs, canvassing, door-knocking, social media posts, and spreading the word. THANK YOU. Every single effort helps and we appreciate every single action each one of you have taken.
We will ask for updates from the various groups to share their activities at the meeting this Sunday, October 19, 2025.
5. NEW INFORMATION LEARNED THROUGH DATA REQUESTS- THE DATA CENTER IS PROJECT LOON
With permission, the MCEA provided documents it just received through a data request sent to the City of Hermantown on May 23, 2025.
ALL documents referenced hereto, and more, will be posted on the Document page. We encourage everyone to read through the documents and form your own opinions. With the limited time provided, we highlighted the following:
The City of Hermantown began discussions around a “Project Loon” in July 2024.
It appears that the last Steering Committee meeting for comprehensive planning occurred on July 11, 2024.
A Project Loon Meeting was held on September 6, 2024. Present were Joe Wicklund, John Mulder, and Chad Ronchetti, in addition to Mortenson and Kimley Horn representatives.
An email from John Mulder to Chad Ronchetti and Joe Wicklund dated September 18, 2024, indicate Mr. Mulder talked to the Mayor. The email states “Data center next to MN Power Substation”; “MN Power introduced this project to us”; and “People at the County and City of Duluth are aware of this”; “Building Company has reached out to Jordan Urshan and Kerry Juntunen”.. His (presumably the Mayor’s) comments “Should we be talking about this extension of utilities in the Comp plan? I told him that we did make sure that this area would be planned for Business Light Manufacturing.”.. “He noted that we would want to be aware of reactions by Urshans.”
In an email from Chris Bates, Mortenson Development Manager to Catalina Valencia of MN DEED dated October 17, 2024, copied to Chad Ronchetti, “Catalina- yes this project is a data center use.”
Emails from Chad Ronchetti reflect Microsoft Teams Meetings regarding Project Loon and AUAR Conversations held on September 23, 2024, October 4, 2024, November 8, 2024, November 15, 2024, and December 9, 2024.
In an email exchange between Chad Ronchetti and Joe Wicklund dated October 4, 2024, “See below, Sappi uses all the water and wants more. We could attach our Increase to theirs though in a joint ask, which is powerful – Chad”.. the referenced email is from Arik Forsman of Minnesota Power dated the same day, October 4, 2024, referencing Project Loon- Sewer and Water Availability- “Turns out Cloquet owns it. Oh yeah, that is for the Lake SUperior water line, bringing water to the mill. The City of Cloquet owns and operates the line and they were asking for some funding to refurbish and upgrade the pumping stations to allow additional water to be pumped. … To close the loop, we generally draw about 10-11 MGD from the Lake, with capacity up to 12.5 MGD. We would like to have the ability to supply the entire mill’s needs from the Lake system when needed, which requires the upgrades to get capacity up to 18 MGD.”
In an email from Chad Ronchetti to Braun, it was discussed that “Kimley Horn did both the AUAR for Farmington and Rosemount.” (Notably both large scale data centers).
In an email dated October 15, 2024, to Chad Ronchetti from Chris Bates of Morenson, “The greater Project Team (Loon Team + Mortenson + Kimley Horn” are planning an in-person trip to northern MN..” the email includes an agenda to include “Wetland Permitting; Municipal Approvals (Comp Plan, Rezone, AUAR); Water/Sewer Municipal Extensions; and Incentives.
In a PROJECT LOON City Engineer Coordination Meeting Agenda for April 29, 2025, the Project Schedule is noted as “Status of Project Authorization Brian- Authorization is expected to be late the week of May 13. Brian noted that every week that authorization pushes delays to the final construction date” and “Construction Brian noted that long-earned bats requirements will need to be accommodated. Tree clearing will occur at the end of winter. On site activities would begin in Spring 2026.” (Emphasis added).
Kimley Horn letter to Chad Ronchetti, Economic Development Director dated May 20, 2025, includes information confirming that the “Developer” through Mortenson Construction entered into a reimbursement agreement to reimburse the City of Hermantown $225,000 in expenses, including:
Northland Consulting Engineers LLP submitted an invoice to the City of Hermantown on September 30, 2024, for $2,267.50 for preliminary engineering consulting; Short Elliott Hendrickson (SEH) submitted an invoice to the City of Hermantown on December 16, 2024, for $8,501.73 for “HERMT Water System Modeling”; County, WLSSD $65,000; AUAR $100,000; Legal $25,000.
The Kimley Horn letter indicates that the City of Hermantown is proposing to complete right-of-way/easements to facilitate the installation of water main and sanitary sewer to service the proposed Project Loon development including:
New water main along Morris Thomas Road from Midway Road to Lavaque Road
New sanitary sewer with lift stations along Morris Thomas Road from Midway Road to Lavaque Road
New water main along Midway Road from Morris Thomas Road to Trunk Highway 194 and along 194 east to 53
New elevated storage tank at the intersection of Midway Road and Rose Road
The City requested that Kimley-Horn provide right of way and easement acquisition services to allow the project to proceed to construction in 2026, in excess project totals of 1.2 million.
The following are excerpts from a Steering Committee member letter to the Hermantown City Council,
“In 2014 I was asked to participate in the “Adolph Neighborhood Small Area Plan”. This plan was considered part of that “Master Plan for the Midway Road and Highway 2 Commercial District.” So, in essence we were working on the drivers from our community engagement that started in 2010. As noted in the final report, “The Adolph Small Area Plan study area is a 3.5 square mile area located in Southwest Hermantown. It is centered on intersection of Highway 2 and Midway Road.
… [i]n September of 2022, I was asked to participate in the steering committee for the 2024 Comprehensive Plan. As you know we met several times between 2022 and 2024. This process was led by a consulting firm that assisted us in the process of community engagement. I recently had a chance to review the final report and most of it looks familiar and includes what we had discussed in those meetings that spanned nearly two years. However, It did seem a little odd that as a steering committee we were never notified that the report was completed, and it was ready to present to the planning commission and ultimately the city council. As a matter of fact, the last meeting was held on July 11, 2024 and the report was presented to the council in April of 2025. What other meetings took place related to the 2045 Comprehensive Plan between July of 2024 and April of 2025 that did not include community involvement?
I have had a chance to talk with other members of the steering committee who also felt like they were kicked off the committee because they just simply stopped receiving invites to meetings. After receiving a message from Eric Johnson last week, I learned that there were no more meetings after July 11, 2024. The steering committee was left in the dark and never had an opportunity to review the final report. There are several parts of this report that mention an “Urban Services Boundary Future Expansion Area” in the SW corner of Hermantown. On page 50 of the report, it even highlights this area with a dotted red line. None of this was discussed in our steering committee meetings. I can assure you that if this was discussed I would have expressed my concerns…
On Tuesday (10/14) I had a face to face conversation with Mr. Ronchetti at the Solway town hall. At this meeting Mr. Ronchetti publicly stated that he did modify the 2045 Comprehensive Report after the Steering Committee adjourned and did NOT invite the Steering Committee to review the report prior to introducing it to the Planning and Zoning board.
Based on the actions that have taken place by the City of Hermantown in the past 12 months, it is clear to me that the 2045 Comprehensive Plan was revised after July 11, 2024, to meet the criteria requested by a Fortune 50 company.
When you review Ordinance 2025-17 that would amend the city zoning map and convert 17 parcels of land totaling over 220 acres from S-1 Suburban to Business and Light Manufacturing, it is also clear that the foundation of the request is based on the City’s 2045 Comprehensive Plan. I can assure you that as a member of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee the idea of expanding the Urban Services Boundary was never discussed.”
These are simply highlights of the hundreds of pages of newly-released documents. There is surely more information to learn as time is provided to more thoroughly review the documents.
In short, however, the documents appear to reflect intentional misrepresentation of this data center project, or at the very least, the true nature and scope of this project to the Public, and assured City approvals in order to begin tree clearing at the end of Winter 2025.
These documents reflect no regard for public input or the possibility of this project not being approved by the Hermantown City Council.