Finnish police opened a criminal investigation into whether a Google subsidiary broke Finland’s environmental laws by clearing and draining about 330 hectares of forest in Muhos, in northern Finland, for a planned data center before finishing required environmental impact assessments. Police said early information pointed to problems with how water was drained and managed on the site, and those problems are part of what they’ll investigate. Finland’s Supervisory Agency already ordered Google this month to stop work at the Muhos site and a second site in Otanmäki, where campaigners estimate a combined 400,000 trees were cut down. Google’s Finland country manager, Antti Järvinen, apologized but said the company acted on its best understanding of the law at the time.
