On March 21 at the University of Cincinnati, a panel of experts, politicians, and citizens presented information at a public forum about data centers. Speakers included Sierra Club Ohio’s attorney Nathan Alley, US Rep. Greg Landsman, and experts from Food and Water Watch, and Fair Shake Environmental Legal. Media were present, including Fox19 News and a reporter from the Wall Street Journal.
The message was clear. Data centers are backed by powerfully positioned corporations that want the centers to proliferate to power ever increasing energy needs of AI (artificial intelligence). These corporations are successfully lobbying elected officials for favorable tax abatements and zoning. Ohio is now a top state for data centers in the USA (between second largest and fifth largest, depending on how the centers are counted). These data centers require massive amounts of electricity and water (for cooling their computers, and generation of electricity also requires huge water inputs). Communities near data centers can’t accommodate this power and water needs without increasing private citizens’ utility bills and causing threats to public health and regional ecosystems. Citizen advocacy and education have succeeded in pausing construction permits for some communities (notably, the city of Cincinnati) in Miami Group’s region of greater Cincinnati, Dayton, and surrounding counties.
Miami Group’s Energy Committee brought our attractive general information table to this event and circulated a petition signed by almost all of the over 60 attendees. The petition encourages the City of Cincinnati to continue its current postponing of zoning decisions for future data centers until further studying the impacts.
