My Town Passed a Data Center Moratorium. Yours Can Too.

I’m the Mayor of Lochbuie, Colorado, and my residents are worried about our water supply. So we passed a five-year moratorium on AI data centers. Your town can, too.

Like many  other parts of the country, our state is facing a serious water-supply problem. Colorado’s water supply depends heavily on mountain snowpack, and our Colorado River system has been overburdened for years. This problem is exacerbated by reduced reservoir levels, population growth, and irrigation-intensive agriculture.

At the same time, climate change has led to record heat and droughts.

A single large-scale data center, depending on location and available resources, can use as much water as our entire town uses. Meanwhile data center energy use makes climate change worse, further endangering our shared future. Data center emissions are projected to skyrocket by 2035.

Water is a finite resource and can’t always replenish fast enough to meet growing demand. We don’t want hyperscale data centers coming into our town and overburdening our already stressed water resources — and polluting our air and groundwater while they’re at it.

Big data centers claim they bring jobs to communities. A closer look shows how flimsy these claims are. In reality, data centers create very few permanent jobs. Most data center jobs are temporary construction jobs, and most of those don’t go to local community members.

“I do want to see businesses in our community that create jobs, but I don’t see how a data center does that when it takes up so much land and produces so few jobs,” Shannon Donnelly, one of my constituents, told me. “We need a clear, evidence-based understanding of the costs and benefits before we make such big decisions that impact people’s lives.”

Shannon is not alone. I heard many comments like these at our town board meetings about water use, noise, and other pollution from data centers.

So I wrote up a proposal for a moratorium on AI data centers in Lochbuie. The ensuing public meeting drew more attendees than I had ever seen. They overwhelmingly supported a moratorium, and it passed easily.

What happened next reflects another troubling reality about how data centers are encroaching on unwilling communities: Brighton, which borders Lochbuie, announced a proposal for a data center there. A town boundary would not protect our water, air, animals, or residents.

“We’ll see the lights and hear the noise,” constituent Desirae Zima told me. “We’ll have to live with the traffic, the infrastructure demands, the industrial equipment, and the potential impacts to water and electricity resources. We will be the neighbors dealing with the impacts to our quality of life.”

Fortunately, opposition from Brighton residents was strong enough that the developer withdrew its application for the proposed data center and the city council voted to advance a one-year moratorium on any such construction. It awaits final approval.

Our small town reflects communities across the country. According to a recent Gallup poll, over 70 percent of Americans oppose data centers in their local areas. Nearly 500 cities, towns, and counties nationwide have enacted or are considering moratoria on data centers.

Congress and the federal government have so far refused to meaningfully regulate the data centers cropping up across the country. So for now, state and local measures like these represent the best tool to protect our communities.

Artificial Intelligence has not yet surpassed good old-fashioned human common sense.

This piece was originally published by our sister site OtherWords.org.