What does it do to the water?
A data center drinks electricity and sheds water. The campus sits in the Maumee headwaters (HUC 04100005); to build it, Google had to move a stream — and that required a permit it had to fight for.
A contested certification
To expand (Phase 3 — buildings DC06 and DC07), the project needed an IDEM §401 Water Quality
Certification (WQC001454), the state’s sign-off that a federally permitted stream/wetland impact
won’t violate Indiana water-quality standards. IDEM issued it on June 5, 2026 — over organized
opposition: a 90-page public-hearing transcript and ~295 pages of compiled comments, including the
Hoosier Environmental Council. [verified] That a routine certification drew a contested hearing
is itself a datapoint on the BOSC thesis — the friction between a quiet build and a public record.
What it permits, in numbers
The §401 puts hard figures on what the campus does to its drainage. Phase 3 alone:
- Permanently relocates 3,415 linear feet of Adams Ditch (0.78 ac, 3,794 cubic yards of fill) to
clear the footprints of DC06 and DC07.
[verified] - Fills 0.84 acre of forested Wetland 56 (to be restored as herbaceous wetland).
[verified] - Temporarily impacts an unnamed tributary of Doctor Ditch for a sanitary-sewer crossing.
[verified] - Mitigates off-site: 160 lf of stream credits + 2.52 acres of forested-wetland credits at the
Openings mitigation bank, plus 3,255 lf of new on-site channel.
[verified]
The receiving water is Adams Ditch → Doctor Ditch → the Maumee — and note it is distinct from
where the Fort Wayne sewage plant discharges (IN0032191 → Baldwin Ditch). The campus sheds
stormwater, not sanitary effluent; commenters flagged the lost wetland’s stormwater-filtering
function. [verified]
The skill: a §401 covers the stream/wetland (the §404 nexus) — not the runoff off the roofs and parking. For that, you measure the plan.
Reading the runoff off a drawing
The §401’s Exhibit 7 is a scaled site plan (1″ = 200′, “Alternative B”). You can measure it. By
color-segmenting and scale-calibrating the drawing: ~46 acres of building footprint (seven data
halls, ~290k sf each) plus ~180 acres of pavement (parking, drives, equipment yards) =
~226 acres impervious on the 858-acre permit area — about 26%. [inference] (Lima’s campus
runs ~34%; Fort Wayne’s is lower because the parcel keeps extensive wetland buffer.) Method
uncertainty is ~±15–20%; the firm regulatory figure awaits the SWPPP / Rule 5 construction
stormwater permit, still [open].
Why it matters: the soils are hydrologic group C drained, D undrained — Pewamo / Blount-Glynwood
lake-plain clays that shed water fast. [verified] Two hundred-plus acres of new impervious surface
on high-runoff clay, draining to a relocated headwaters ditch, is a measurable change to a small
stream — derived not from a press release but from a permit and a drawing you can check.
Records read in this chapter (in the library under Records / Reference):
idem/fort-wayne/wqc001454.idem.yaml— the contested §401 (stream relocation, wetland fill, mitigation).fort-wayne/bosc-site-footprint.yaml— the impervious-area derivation from Exhibit 7 + the SSURGO soils.