It's a weird story. There must have been dozens of approvals by the government for this project.

Aurornis 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Every time it gets posted most assume that the forest was supposed to be protected and they decided to cut it down anyway.

The details are much less dramatic: The company doing the work messed up on a part of the approval process that was supposed to be completed first. It’s technically possible that the environmental impact review would come back with some obscure exception that required them to revise their plans, but it’s unlikely that anything was going to stop those trees from being cut down.

The 250K trees headline appears dramatic if you don’t know that Finland is covered in trees and cutting down a lot of them is part of building anything.

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saalweachter 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In the US there's also a third category besides "permit approved" and "permit denied", "no permit needed": the thing you are doing is allowed and not covered by the permitting process. You just do it. This shows up in both building code (you typically don't need a permit for most repairs or cosmetic renovations) and environmental protections (you don't need an environmental study for logging in a non-protected forest).

The tricky part with "no permit needed" is that while you can just go and do whatever, if someone charged with enforcement suspects you're doing something that requires a permit, they can still demand you prove you don't (and stop work until you do), and if you guessed wrong and you did indeed need a permit, you're double-fucked.

That's why for many of these processes, there's also something like a certificate of no-permit needed, where you go through an abbreviated permitting process spending a lot of time and money while all of the clerks and officials stare at you like you're a moron before finally giving you a piece of paper saying you didn't need to do any of that in the first place.

And that's why a lot of people with a lot of experience and a good understanding of the law skip getting a "no permit needed" certificate.

I am assuming it's similar in other countries.

	▲	knorker an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> a certificate of no-permit needed Amusing. It sounds like it's a permit to not need a permit.

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ortusdux an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

A friend worked in the US tree cutting permit process. There were two main goals behind the permits (as I understand it):

1) To double check the harvest was not going to affect things outside their property (neighbors, land slides, erosion, etc), or special govt. interests on their property (endangered species)

2) To maintain their significant tax break. The break was for owning forest land, and you needed a plan to replant successfully.

Keep in mind that these are mostly 'working forests' that are more akin to wheat fields than wild forests.

It sounds like the issue was insufficient analysis of #1, resulting in excessive water run-off to neighboring privately owned property.

That being said, it could also be #2. The same friend worked on 'conversion' permits, wherein the owner asked to turn forest land into a residential or business property, and special considerations had to be addressed.

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sampo an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

• You wouldn't need this kind of permit for clear-cutting 3.3 sq-km of forest, if the forest stays as forest (i.e. you will plant with tree seedlings)

• You need this permit when the land use changes (from forest to build area)

• The subcontractor might not have known that they are clear-cutting without all permits, or at least they might have plausible deniability

• The decision makers of the town of Muhos want the data center, as it bring jobs and taxable income

• The town building inspector had given a green light for Google to proceed

• Finland is, still, a high-trust society. Punishment for this kind of wrong-doing is likely lenient (some relatively small fines), the shame of having been sentenced in court is supposed to be the main deterrent in itself

• Thus, it might make financial sense for Google to cut corners and proceed faster, even if it means they end up paying some fines

• Unless the bad publicity ends up costing more than the saved project time

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rconti 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, and it's being done by a local contractor who presumably knows the process. It'll definitely be interesting if some moustache-twirling CEO at a foreign company is shown to have yelled "BURN THE FOREST DOWN, I WANT IT NOW!" at the contractor, but that feels unlikely in this case.

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Hamuko 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Google (through its local subsidiary) asked the regulators if they could skip doing an environmental impact assessment. The regulators told them that they could not skip doing it. They'd already started logging before asking for the exemption and continued to log for months after being told that there would not be an exemption.

They'd also applied for a landscaping permit for the site, but were denied one by the municipality because they'd still not performed the environmental impact assessment.

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SecretDreams 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's google trying to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, the news cycles making money on the cockup, and HN whiteknighting for Google because Google pays their wages directly and indirectly.

A viscous cycle all around!

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boothby an hour ago | parent [-]

Closing the loop: google makes ad money on all the views these stories get

	▲	rhaps0dy an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That can't be more than a few thousand dollars, compared to the millions they must be spending making this data center.

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CrimsonRain 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Funny thing is, if this "forest" is to be protected, why doesn't the govt buy/own the land? What an idiotic thing to say you plant trees in your land but you are not allowed to cut it. Don't approve of a data center in a land where you won't let them clear it. Bureaucracy must prevail!

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mirekrusin 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I think they were expecting them to be replanted on the roof.

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done_lurking an hour ago | parent [-]

How do you grow trees on a roof without roots destroying the roof?

	▲	Polizeiposaune an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Add root barrier layers underneath the soil on top of the roof, and weed out tree species known to cause trouble.. See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_roof Significant soil depth can be part of the solution, which no doubt requires additional strength in the structure underneath the roof.. For a worked example: "The 5.4-acre green roof has soil depths that vary from 18 inches to 4.5 ft. This layered planting system is a structurally engineered component of the building that functions to balance seismic shifting, collect and filter stormwater, and irrigate the gardens. Geosynthetic fill was used to build up the rolling topography of the park while adding minimal weight to the structure." From https://www.landscapeperformance.org/case-study-briefs/sales... under the "sustainable features" tab.

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throwitaway222 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's the first thing that comes to mind here too. Very very very few contractors are going to do work without a permit. Maybe Finland needs to investigate their own government offices?