IDEM issues letter over wetland impact at Amazon data center site in New Carlisle
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The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has issued a letter to Amazon Web Services at the site of the company’s $11 billion data center campus in New Carlisle.
Our partners at WSBT-TV Channel 22 report the agency sent a letter to Amazon and Walbridge Construction citing a reported impact on less than an acre of wetlands in the area.
Walbridge Construction, headquartered in Detroit, was contracted by Amazon to construct the data center campus.
According to the letter, the impact on the wetlands occurred last summer and was reported to IDEM by Amazon representative Bijay Niraula, who claimed the company was not aware of the impact.
Specific details on what kind of impact on the wetlands there was were not clear, though the agency’s letter referred to “the discharge of fill material into a water of the state.”
The construction firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. IDEM provided a statement to WSBT saying Amazon was cited for impacting wetlands without authorization and instructed to “cease all construction activities in waters of the state until they obtain the necessary authorization.”
A spokesperson for Amazon told Inside INdiana Business that while there was an inadvertent impact to wetlands on the site, which the company reported to IDEM, there was no construction activity on the affected area.
The agency said it and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are working with Amazon to address the violation and expect a resubmittal of its Water Quality Certification application later this year.
Officials broke ground on the Amazon data center campus last September. The project represents the largest capital investment in Indiana history and is expected to create at least 1,000 jobs in the St. Joseph County town.
The first few buildings on the campus are slated for completion by the end of this year.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to clarify Amazon’s statement that no construction activity was being performed on the impacted wetland area.