Loud, thirsty, power hungry, and intensely unpopular with neighboring residents: datacenters are becoming the new nuclear waste dump. And many localities are now saying “not in my backyard.”
This week, Maine lawmakers became the first in the US to pass a statewide moratorium, pausing approvals for new datacenters with a load of 20 megawatts or more until November 1, 2027. While the bill has passed the state House and Senate, it still needs to be signed into law by Maine’s Governor Janet Mills.
The moratorium is intended to give the state government time to better understand the impact of these facilities on residents, utilities, and the environment.
In the wake of the AI boom, datacenter power and water consumption has exploded. Today large datacenter campuses, like Crusoe’s facilities in Abilene, Texas, are moving beyond a gigawatt of planned capacity, while Meta’s Hyperion bit barn in Louisiana is now expected to surpass 5 gigawatts when complete.
This puts a massive load on local utilities, which in many cases are having to bring new generation capacity online. This has led to fears that ratepayers could end up footing the bill. Noise pollution from on-site generators and water consumption from cooling towers are also commonly cited concerns. And if the videos we’ve seen posted to social media are indeed the result of datacenter operations, we can’t blame folks for being upset.
“We have seen in other states, the use cases when rapid development outpaces policy, enormous impacts on electric ratepayers, on light, noise and greenhouse gas emissions in those communities without significant community development of, say, economic activity,” Maine state Rep. Melanie Sachs said in a video posted to Facebook earlier this month. “It’s so important for Maine to take this pause to say, ‘what is it that we need to enhance, if anything, for our regulatory environment?'”
Maine is far from the only state grappling with the impact of datacenter buildouts. We’ve previously covered the NAACP’s lawsuit over the alleged impacts of Elon Musk’s Colossus datacenter in Memphis, Tennessee on air quality in the region.
At the local level, datacenter moratoriums have been gaining momentum as residents speak out against facilities whose development is often shrouded in secrecy.
Many of these efforts are the result of opposition from local residents facing down the environmental and economic impacts of these facilities on their community.
This week, Oakley, California became the first Bay Area city to pass a moratorium blocking new datacenter developments for 45 days while officials assessed the facilities’ impact on energy and water.
Meanwhile, last week residents of Port Washington, Wisconsin, where Oracle and OpenAI plan to build a 1.3 gigawatt bit barn, passed a referendum requiring voter approval for large future development incentives.
These datacenter moratoriums are just the latest examples. Over the past few months, local governments across Colorado, Wisconsin, Georgia, Iowa, and Missouri have enacted similar moratoriums.
The consequences for ignoring citizens’ concerns can be significant.
Earlier this week, Politico reported that voters in Festus, Missouri had voted to eject half its city council after approving a $6 billion datacenter project in spite of strong community opposition.
The backlash isn’t limited to the US. If there’s one thing citizens of any nation seem to agree about, it’s that they don’t want datacenters in their backyards. As we’ve previously reported, efforts to convert a former RAF base in Essex to a datacenter complex were passed in spite of strong opposition from local residents.
Some hyperscalers have taken notice. In October, Microsoft abandoned plans for a large datacenter complex in Caledonia, Wisconsin after residents pushed back against the proposal.
“You have to win over the local community and sustain their trust if you are going to build,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said during a conference in Texas last month. ®
