GoKawiilA recent Heatmap Pro poll found that seven out of 10 Americans now oppose the construction of a data center near their home. The Pew Research Center also found in March that more Americans believe data centers have a negative effect on the environment, home energy costs and the quality of life of those who live near them than they do a positive effect. According to Abre' Conner, the director of the NAACP's Center for Environmental and Climate Justice, hastily built data centers present a number of concerns, starting with air quality.
"Typically all of them have some type of diesel backup generator," she explains. "A lot of them use whatever energy sources they have access to so they can get online as quickly as possible, and oftentimes those aren't clean, renewable sources."
In April, the NAACP, with support from Earthjustice and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) sued xAI (now known as SpaceXAI after merging with SpaceX), alleging the company has been illegally operating 27 methane gas turbines to power its Colossus 2 data center in South Memphis. The organization says those turbines have the potential to emit more than 1,700 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) into the air each year.
Those same turbines also produce substantial noise pollution. Jason Haley, a resident who lives within a mile of the Colossus 2 facility, measured sounds that range in the mid-50 decibels, with the sound penetrating into his home. In a recent interview with CNBC, he described the noise "like a form of torture." In Manassas, Virginia, residents recorded a constant hum that measured at 65 decibels.
In 1974, the US Environmental Protection Agency recommended outdoor and indoor noise limits of 55 decibels and 45 decibels respectively. "These levels of noise are considered those which will permit spoken conversation and other activities such as sleeping, working and recreation, which are part of the daily human condition," the agency wrote at the time.
"When these facilities first came out, the conversation was around the idea that it's a slightly annoying hum — but oftentimes the sound is debilitating," says Conner. "It has cut people's sleep in half in some of the places where we're talking to residents."
In some areas, data center construction has also affected local water supplies. In Wyoming, for instance, the state implemented stricter regulations after a contractor working on a Meta project flushed contaminated water into a city's public sewage. "People have shown us what their water looks like in certain places after a data center shows up, and at times that water is dirty, completely contaminated," says Conner.
There are things hyperscalers could do to mitigate the concerns of those living near their data centers, but so far, those companies have been reluctant to appease residents. In Virginia, for example, the community outside of Manassas had to wait six weeks following a string of complaints before Amazon agreed to meet to discuss the noise from one of its data centers — noise it claimed involved proprietary information. After 18 months of sustained pressure, Amazon eventually reduced noise output of the facility by 10 decibels.
"The goal of the advocacy is to make these projects work for everyone — relying on clean energy, reducing noise impacts, reducing water usage," says Amanda Garcia, senior attorney and leader of the data center project at the SELC. "Bringing better development to the table for communities is going to get tech companies a lot further than trying to shove these projects down people's throats the way they're currently proposing them.