Ypsilanti Utility Approves Data Center Moratorium

The Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority has approved a 12-month moratorium on new water and sewer service commitments for data centers and similar high-demand computing facilities.

YCUA provides water and wastewater service to Ypsilanti Township, the City of Ypsilanti and certain other communities. The pause means YCUA will not make new water or sewer service commitments to those projects while it studies possible effects on the system, existing customers and future development.

The vote followed a formal request from the Ypsilanti Township Board of Trustees, which unanimously approved a resolution April 15 asking YCUA to pause water and sewer service decisions for data centers and similar facilities while additional studies are completed.

The moratorium applies to hyperscale data centers, mid-sized data centers, artificial intelligence computing facilities and high-performance computing centers. It includes new service connections, reserved system capacity, infrastructure expansion commitments and early service approvals.

YCUA’s April 22 board packet says the review is expected to include water supply, wastewater capacity, possible effects on customer rates, infrastructure costs, environmental review and emergency response planning.

During the moratorium, YCUA will not issue “will-serve letters or conditional approvals,” enter into capacity reservation agreements or make infrastructure commitments that could affect the outcome of the studies.

The moratorium comes as Ypsilanti Township continues to face questions about a proposed University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory high-performance computing facility. However, the YCUA documents do not name a specific project as the sole target of the moratorium.

The township resolution refers broadly to data centers, artificial intelligence computing facilities and high-performance computing centers.