Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority Passes 12-Month Water/Sewer Moratorium on Data Centers (Resolution 26-08)

The Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority (YCUA) board voted unanimously to pass Resolution 26-08, a 12-month moratorium barring new water and sewer service connections, capacity reservations, infrastructure commitments, and preliminary approvals for hyperscale data centers, mid-sized data centers, AI computing facilities, and high-performance computational centers. During the moratorium period, YCUA will study water supply/demand capacity, wastewater treatment capability, financial impacts, infrastructure needs, environmental/sustainability effects, and emergency preparedness and system resilience.

The moratorium was requested by the Ypsilanti Charter Township Board (which had, on March 31, 2026, formally resolved to oppose siting the University of Michigan/Los Alamos National Laboratory “high-performance computational research center” anywhere in the township). YCUA’s board includes Township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo and Township Trustee Gloria Peterson as commissioners; YCUA’s Executive Director is identified in reporting as Luther/Luke Blackburn (spelling varies by outlet — verify against YCUA’s own materials before further citation).

Capacity context: YCUA has an estimated 4-5 million gallons/day of excess wastewater capacity. A single hyperscale data center can use up to 5 million gallons/day, meaning even one large facility could consume the utility’s entire buffer — the stated rationale for pausing new commitments pending study.

Unconfirmed claim — flag before repeating: at least one syndicated wire piece characterized this as “the first known case of a municipal utility wielding infrastructure access as leverage against major tech expansion.” Other outlets (Planet Detroit, Bridge Michigan) used the narrower, hedged framing that Ypsilanti is “believed to be the first to demand more time” to study wastewater/transmission impacts before committing capacity. Neither claim has been corroborated against a national dataset of water-utility responses to data-center siting fights. Do not present the “first in the US” framing as an established fact without further verification.

The moratorium does not by itself kill the U-M/Los Alamos project — U-M and LANL have reportedly indicated they intend to proceed with site development despite it, which several outlets describe as setting up a potential conflict between federal research priorities and local infrastructure governance. As of this writing no lawsuit over the moratorium itself had been confirmed in tier-1/tier-2 reporting.