April 12, 2026.
After a Tribal Member was verbally attacked at board meetings by the tribal chairman did a Michigan Non-Profit Journalist discover the truth?
What we absolutely know is true is that community push-back prompts the Sault Tribe Board of Directors to adopt moratorium on data centers.
Members of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians Board of Directors voted unanimously to approve a moratorium prohibiting the development of artificial intelligence data centers on tribal lands. Citing concerns about the strain these facilities place on local resources, concerns about long-term land use impacts and uncertainty on whether a facility would yield long-term economic benefits, the moratorium will remain in effect indefinitely, or until it is explicitly lifted by a future board resolution.
However, any resolution to lift the moratorium would need to follow several other steps, including:
A comprehensive Tribal impact assessment;
Environmental and cultural resource evaluations;
An infrastructure and energy capacity analysis;
A robust community consultation and input process.
Chloe Kannan, the director of EUP Solidarity and a member of the tribe, said she had been working with other community organizations to educate residents on how to work proactively to ensure their community is involved in decisions around data centers, and how to prevent projects from being built in their communities.
After receiving word that there would be a closed-session strategic planning meeting on March 23, followed by a board vote the following day to adopt a strategic plan, which included discussions on data centers, Kannan said she raised the alarm.
References to data centers were ultimately removed from the strategic plan, Kannan said, but community members in attendance at the board’s March 24 meeting went further, calling on leadership to pass a moratorium on data centers.
Ahead of the vote, several community members said there was no truth to fears that the Tribe was looking into building data centers in the community, with Sault Tribe Chairman Austin Lowes saying there was “never a proposal to build a single data center.” However, an excerpt from the previous strategic plan, which Kannan says she obtained from a member of tribal government, states that the tribe’s economic development corporation is “currently in the discovery phase with Innova Capital Partners, to develop a site for a data center on M-28.”
Innova is a global investment firm, based in New York. Research conducted and reviewed by Michigan Advance, lays out the strategic rationale for building data centers on Tribal Trust Land, stating “Locating data centers on trust land can significantly reduce permitting timelines by eliminating state and local layers, creating a compelling value proposition for partners.”
At the board meeting one of the Directors claims that efforts opposing a data center were pushing fear within the community. “I will comment that we all heard the EDC CEO state, it was in the strategy plan." but ....it’s no longer in the strategic plan. "It got removed because people spoke up.”
A voicemail from Michigan Advance left requesting an interview with Lowes was not returned.
Another excerpt from the since-amended strategic plan lists broadband and digital infrastructure, real estate, energy, data centers and “other capital-intensive platforms where structural demand, regulatory advantages and professional operating partners support durable performance” as the economic development corporation’s priority sectors.
Kannan said the community has demanded to know whether there were non-disclosure agreements tied to these data center discussions, along with the release of the sections removed from the strategic plan, and that the lack of transparency matches a pattern she’s seen in other communities fighting back against data centers. “People need to know that leadership was actually being dishonest about how far along that they were,” Kannan said. “And so I’ve made a decision to blow the whistle on this; she wants to believe in the moratorium, but questioned how far along a data center effort would be if that information hadn’t been shared with the community."
Austins attempt to discredit Chloe at board meetings because of the push-back about data centers on the reservation in our view was unprofessional and unacceptable behavior. As we see it he owes Chloe a public apology or risks not being re-elected or possibly being recalled.
This story was provided by https://michiganadvance.com Edited by the Sault Tribe Guardian.
