The data center fight in Marshall County, Indiana
As of October 1, 2026, Marshall County, Indiana has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Apr 20, 2026).
Status is derived, not stored — a pause with a documented end date flips to Expired on its own — and the source is right next to the claim.
Status today
Permanent ban — the Board of Commissioners replaced an earlier temporary moratorium (adopted around Jan 2025, reportedly the first in the state) with a prohibition on "Data Processing" uses in the county zoning ordinance. Commissioner Jesse Bohannon said no company had actually proposed a project in Marshall County — the ban followed concern after Amazon and Microsoft campuses were built in neighboring St. Joseph and La Porte counties. Same day, commissioners also adopted a battery-storage setback ordinance and advanced a solar-farm acreage cap. No exact ordinance number could be confirmed from a public source; do not publish one without verifying it
SourceNews
read 2026-09-02
An expiry date is the earliest a pause could have ended — extensions are common, so confirm with the clerk before citing it.
Recent news
6 stories tracked since 2025-01-09 across 5 outlets. 5× Local officials are moving to pause or block the project. 1× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. Most recent: “Marshall County Zoning Commission unanimously recommends six-month data center moratorium” (Times Republican, 2026-08-28).
- Marshall County Zoning Commission unanimously recommends six-month data center moratorium
- Marshall County approves permanent ban on data centers, effective immediately
- Marshall County approves permanent ban on data centers
- Marshall County commissioners defend data center ban
- Marshall County commissioners ban data centers, advance new limit on solar projects
- Former Indiana State Probationary Trooper arrested, faces drug charges in Marshall County
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 6 headlines archived.
Where the decision gets made
Marshall County Board of Commissioners — Zoning ordinance amendments (the ban is written into the county zoning ordinance as a prohibited use), county buildings/lands, roads and bridges, and contract authorization; the Commissioners are the county's executive/legislative body for this purpose, acting on Plan Commission and Council input
Meets: First Monday of each month at 8:30 AM; third Monday of each month at 9:30 AM (start time can shift depending on the preceding Drainage Board meeting)
Where: Commissioners Room 203, Marshall County Building, 112 W Jefferson St, Plymouth, IN 46563
Public comment: Not specified on the commissioners' page beyond regular meeting attendance; the April 2026 ban followed public commissioner discussion referencing majority resident support, but no separate written comment procedure was found
(574) 935-8555 · website
Read from the official page on 2026-09-02. Meeting details change — confirm before you go.
Who votes on it
| Name | Role | Phone | Recorded stance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stan Klotz | President, Board of Commissioners | — | 574-286-2452 | Voted for the permanent data center ban adopted 2026-04-20; quoted: "Success is protecting the public, protecting this county, the farmland ... we want to keep Marshall County Marshall County." |
| Adam Faulstich | Member, Board of Commissioners | — | 574-767-2458 | not recorded |
| Jesse Bohannon | Member, Board of Commissioners | — | 574-216-0115 | Voted for the permanent data center ban adopted 2026-04-20; said he took office in 2025 on a mandate to keep data centers out of the county and, quoted: "As far as I know we are probably the most protected locality in all of Indiana." |
| Deborah Johnson | President, County Council and Plan/Planning Commission | — | — | Quoted discussing the data center ban and related battery storage/solar restrictions on 2026-04-20 |
From the locality's own roster page; "not recorded" means no public statement is on file, not neutrality.
What to do next
- Questions to ask at the hearing — force specific answers onto the record.
- Estimate the impact — electricity, water, and rate pressure for any facility size in Indiana.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Indiana briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in Indiana
- Starke County (17 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-15
- Fulton County (20 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-03-02
- Elkhart (29 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-12-31
- Pulaski County (29 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-02-02
- Michigan City (39 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
- Cass County (41 mi) — Enactedno end date — permanent
- Miami County (43 mi) — Enactedterm not documented
- White County (50 mi) — Enactedexpires soon — 2026-10-20
All 23 tracked actions in Indiana are on the state page.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
Illustrative rather than exhaustive — dozens of localities churn weekly, and this tracks the ones we have read a source for. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to the ordinance, the enacting body's own page, or a datable report of the vote, and were read on that date. Rows marked *unverified* came from bulk compilation and have not been checked against a primary source — the locality, the year, and the status may all be off. Verify one of those with the town clerk before citing it as precedent. **Expiry is derived, not asserted.** A row with a documented end date flips to *Expired* on its own once that date passes. A time-limited moratorium whose start date was never documented keeps showing as enacted — that is a known gap, not a claim that it is still in force. Moratoriums are also routinely extended, so an expiry date is the earliest it could have ended, not proof that it did.
Part of the U.S. data center moratorium tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0.