A Virginia resident named Kay Richards says she’s stuck in a real-life nightmare after 14 data centers opened within a mile of her home, where they emit a terrible odor.
“The constant buzzing and smell of what I believe is diesel make it hard for me to even go in my backyard,” said Richards, a resident of the city of Manassas, in a first-person account published by Business Insider.
But hell no, she ain’t leaving.
“We’ll continue to fight the developers as they try to build more,” she said. “I will die on this hill and stay in this house.”
Richards, who lives in a hot bed of data centers, isn’t alone in her complaints; many people across the country are also increasingly upset about the negative impact from living near data centers, whose presence has grown in recent years due to the artificial intelligence gold rush.
In rural Georgia, residents have lobbed complaints that the construction of a nearby data center has disrupted or polluted the local water supply. People in Iowa are furious that the proliferation of data centers is sucking up untold gallons of potable water for cooling amidst drought-like conditions.
The public’s growing complaints even prompted Amazon executives to hide public information on how much water the company is using; in 2021, an internal memo revealed that the tech company inhaled 105 billion gallons of water, but publicly disclosed in a pro-environmental campaign that 7.76 billion gallons was used annually.
Besides water, people have criticized the excessive noise and air pollution that data centers emit from their power generators. In Tennessee, for instance, residents and community groups are upset that a data center owned by xAI, tech billionaire Elon Musk’s AI company, has doubled the number of gas turbines at the complex without proper approval, allegedly violating the Clean Air Act.
And we haven’t even gotten into people’s criticism of energy costs associated with data centers, which have been accused of sending electricity bills skyrocketing.
Though local leaders usually tout the economic positives from data centers in the way of increased jobs and tax revenue, critics have long argued that the costs — to the environment, public health, and more — far outweigh any positives, and that local residents are disproportionately burdened by the negative impacts compared to the company and its executives.
People like Richards are now fighting developers to make sure no more data centers are built in their neighborhoods in order to maintain their quality of life.
“No matter what happens, this is still our dream home,” she said. “It’s not just the property that we love, it’s also the neighborhood and the people in it. We’re not moving, so we’ll just have to stand our ground and keep fighting.”
Amazon, which runs one of the closest data centers to Richards’ house, pushed back against the reporting.
“We took a close look at the concerns raised about our data center, which is located in a commercial and industrial area, and found we haven’t received any feedback from nearby residents about the issues described,” it wrote. “We always follow all local laws and ordinances, including sound, lighting, and environmental standards, and we truly value being a good neighbor. We actively engage with the community and always welcome the opportunity to listen, learn, and respond to any questions or feedback.”
