Protesters Install Permanent Community Garden, Blocking ICE Tipline

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct 6, 2026 | Contact: press@shutdownicevt.org

Protesters Install Permanent Community Garden, Blocking ICE Tipline

Williston, VT – At approximately 7am, protesters installed a community garden that blocked both sides of the road leading to the ICE Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC). Community members started to construct four 8 ft. long raised beds,  filling them with vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants. Fixed in place with liquid nails, and weighing over a thousand pounds each, the planters  continue to block access to the ICE National Tipline and other LESC facilities. An array of pots and smaller planters expanded the garden over the course of the day, as additional community members arrived with plants and other additions to the project. 

Participants in the action highlighted the relationships between borders, immigration enforcement, data centers, and climate change as connected forms of environmental violence. “ICE’s surveillance technology is extremely energy-intensive, much of it powered by AI and data centers,” said Isaac Petersen, a gardener and organizer. “It harms our communities directly by targeting our neighbors. By replacing access to these facilities with a community garden today, we built one piece of a better world.”

Local police responded immediately, telling protesters to leave the road, but the group of around 30 people continued construction of the gardens. The planters are painted with flowers, insects, and slogans such as “no borders,” “stronger together,” and “from Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go.” By 10am a full-blown dance party broke out and continued through the afternoon. As of 4:30pm, the gardens remain firmly in place, surveilled by state and local police.

“ICE doesn’t make our communities better, everyday people do,” said Leif Taranta, an organizer with the Climate Disobedience Center and VT ICE Detainee Tracker. And that absolutely includes our beloved immigrant siblings. As long as ICE continues stealing and disappearing our neighbors, we will continue building community infrastructure that blocks their way.” 

The LESC not only responds to tips; it also performs “proactive targeting” of individuals. It houses ICE’s central database of information on 340,000 targets for arrest, and answers about 55,000 calls per year from local law enforcement to help them identify people that ICE wants to arrest. If a deportation or raid happens, it's likely it started with this facility in Vermont.

This action was a part of a week of activities organized by local groups, including Shut Down ICE VT, to bring attention to unjust and inhumane ICE practices nationally. Tomorrow, on the anniversary of the October 7th attacks and the escalation of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, protesters will gather at the White Cap business park to draw attention to the DHS’s use of IDF technology at its surveillance and targeting facilities. More at shutdownicevt.org

Rally At Bow NH Selectboard Meeting September 22 2026

Tomorrow, September 22nd at 5pm in Bow, members of the No Coal No Gas campaign, 350NH Action, and other community members will rally before the town Selectboard meeting in opposition to the proposed hyperscale data center. We will then attend the Selectboard meeting to support community members who prepared to speak during the public comment section of the meeting. The meeting is currently being planned for the Municipal building in Bow.

Over 3,600 New Hampshire residents signed the petition in opposition of Granite Shore Power's potential AI data center. Bow residents and neighbors alike plan to ask the Selectboard to be proactive about the harmful impacts of data centers like these. We invite members of the press to join us before the meeting to hear from residents and organizers. 

The No Coal No Gas campaign has been organizing in Bow to transition the coal-fired power plant to clean, renewable energy. When Granite Shore Power shut down operations, they said they would transition the site to a renewable energy park. An AI data center is the opposite of what community members asked for in a transition plan for the facility. 

Activist Art Announces Data Center Company Deal with Connecticut Power Plants

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 9, 2026

Contact: Kendra Ford, kford@uuma.org, 603.431.6675

Title: Activist Art Announces Data Center Company Deal with Local Power Plants

Activists block pathway to Devon Power Plant, whose parent company is pending sale to DigitalBridge and SoftBank.

Milford, CT: Activists with the No Coal No Gas campaign blocked the entrance to ArcLight Devon Power LLC, to raise the alarm over an impending takeover of nine power plants in Connecticut by AI-focused companies who aim to supply "hyper-scale" data centers with electric power. The activists installed a spiderweb made of old electrical cables strung across the bridge at the entrance to the oil-burning plant, complete with banners reading "AI is a trap" and "data centers = bridge to nowhere."

AI-focused corporations Digital Bridge and Soft Bank are seeking to acquire the power plant's owner ArcLight, a private equity firm that is one of the largest owners of power plants in the United States. ArcLight owns 9 plants in Connecticut, as well as plants in 14 other states and provinces in the US and Canada.

ArcLight's Connecticut Power Plants

County Plant Name Fuel Type Town

New Haven Branford Oil Branford

New Haven Harbor Oil New Haven

Devon Oil Milford

New London Montville Primary Oil, Montville

Secondary Gas

Fairfield Cos Cob Oil Greenwich

Bridgeport Harbor Gas Bridgeport

Litchfield Torrington Terminal Oil Torrington

Franklin Drive Oil Torrington

Middlesex Middletown Primary Gas, Middletown

Secondary Oil

DigitalBridge and SoftBank have an explicit intention to expand and focus on their AI capacity, with ArcLight's electrical generation assets allowing them to power data centers in Connecticut and nearby states. "DigitalBridge, SoftBank, and ArcLight are making this move as data centers wreak havoc around the world, making themselves unpopular across the political spectrum," said Isaac Petersen, an organizer with the No Coal No Gas campaign. "Many data center projects receive heavy subsidies from taxes and utility bill fees, then repay local communities by driving up electricity costs, draining the water table, causing rolling blackouts, and polluting the air, water, and soil. The impacts are widespread."

Further complicating matters, eight of ArcLight's power plants in Connecticut are peaker plants, which run only occasionally when energy demands required it. All eight of these peakers deliver less than 2% of their capacity to the regional electrical grid each year, according to data from the United States Energy Information Administration. For the 12 month period from May 2027- May 2028, the regional grid operator has committed $5,696,667.84 in forward capacity payments to ArcLight Devon in exchange for it being available to deliver electricity to the grid.

The sum of subsidizing payments for the same months across all nine ArcLight owned power plants slated for sale to Digital Bridge and Soft Bank is $164,849,806.56.

Forward capacity payments are ratepayer funded subsidies that incentivize power generators to be ready to deliver electricity to the grid at times of peak demand. This arrangement could allow the new owners of these power plants to continue to receive the subsidy, while increasing sales of electricity to the grid by as much as 49 times in order to provide power for new data centers. If data centers are built on-site, these facilities could retain the subsidies and devote, on average, as much as 98% of their generating capacity to power those facilities.

Either scenario would mean burning oil around the clock at full throttle and a massive increases toxic air emissions, including sulfur and nitrogen gases, as well as fine particulate matter. These pollutants are known to cause respiratory and cardiovascular damage. Burning oil and gas a such increased rates would also drive climate change effects like dangerous heat waves.

In Milford, ArcLight Devon sits on the Housatonic River, directly adjacent to a public boat launch. It is less than a mile upriver from a protected saltmarsh and Audubon Center on the

coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Oil-fired power plants require on-site fuel storage, and ramping up generation at this power plant would require more fuel and more frequent deliveries. In a time when this dirty, expensive, and outdated power plant should be retired, its continued use would pose a genuine threat to the health of these coastal ecosystems and to water recreation for local residents.

Fortunately, this merger is not finalized, and we have opportunities to interfere before any data centers sites get officially proposed," said Kendra Ford, organizer with the campaign and member of the Consumer Liaison Group Coordinating Committee with the regional electrical grip operator, the ISO-NE. "No Coal No Gas is pursuing regulatory intervention with bodies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. These regulators do the right thing far too rarely, but forcing the corporations involved to complete the proper process of public engagement gives us time to spread the word and get organized.”