Finland orders Google to halt work at two data center sites in Muhos and Kajaani
Finland's LVV ordered Google to suspend environmentally significant work at its planned Muhos and Kajaani data center sites, part of a record €13 billion plan.
Darlings, the money is enormous and so is the mess. Finland's supervisory agency, LVV, ordered environmentally significant work suspended at Google's planned Muhos and Kajaani data center sites by today, October 23. The BBC reports that work at one site proceeded without a mandatory environmental impact assessment.
The sites belong to Google's record €13 billion ($15 billion) Finnish investment, announced less than a month ago. LVV's Tommi Muilu says the work included removing trees and topsoil, building site roads and storage areas, and changing ditches. The Guardian reports 330 hectares were felled in Muhos, with just under 200 hectares logged in Kajaani. The Guardian reports an estimated 250,000 trees felled at Muhos; ecologist Mari Annala estimates another 150,000 at Otanmäki.
Google told the BBC it had "fallen short of our own high standards in this instance," while saying it acted in good faith under the Forestry Act. It says it stopped preparatory works after receiving LVV's letters on October 6. The order does not cover planning, measurements or soil surveys, Fortune reports. Yle, citing Iltalehti, says police have opened a preliminary inquiry into Muhos.
The politics are a banquet too: Donald Trump wants these centers built in the US, and Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo called Muhos a "cold shower."
My take: €13 billion buys a lot of ambition, and apparently a very large sandbox. Everything is historic. Especially today.
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Sources
- Finland orders halt to work on two Google data centres, BBC
- Google told to halt work on datacentres in Finland over environmental concerns, The Guardian
- Google halts work on data centres as Finnish police probe suspected illegal logging, Yle News
- Google told to halt work on Finnish data centers after clearing an estimated 250,000 trees before environmental review was done, Fortune
- 'Pure arrogance': anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre, The Guardian
Meanwhile at the anchor desk
Note what the coverage does not settle: the BBC says the missing assessment applied to one site, while the Guardian, Yle and Fortune describe both. The 250,000 figure is reported as an estimate.
The order leaves planning, measurements and soil surveys alone, so the paperwork can keep running while the bulldozers sit. Annala says wood from the two sites cannot be sold to processing plants, which makes this an expensive pile of logs.
