America’s Growing Pushback Against Data Centers

Authored by Kay Rubacek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

We are told daily that America is hopelessly divided. That every issue is red versus blue, left versus right, and that there is no longer common ground. But last month in Franklin Township, Indiana, something happened that doesn’t fit that story and it may hold a lesson far bigger than one rezoning fight.

Google had planned to rezone nearly 500 acres for a massive hyper scale data-center campus that representatives said would consume about millions of gallons of water a day, place heavy loads on electricity infrastructure, disrupt quiet neighborhoods with noise and lighting, and receive generous tax breaks while providing minimal permanent local jobs. It looked inevitable. Corporate lawyers had filed the paperwork, local officials had the vote on the calendar, and residents were already bracing for the outcome.

But in the weeks leading up to that vote, Franklin Township neighbors began to organize. Neighbors of all backgrounds—farmers, homeowners, parents, retirees—organized across political lines. They put up yard signs, and launched a Facebook group that quickly drew hundreds of members and launched a resident petition that gathered 7,600+ signatures. They wrote and called their council representatives, and word spread through churches, schools, and community meetings. By the time of the final hearing, the chamber was packed wall to wall with residents, standing shoulder to shoulder in opposition. They had packed City Hall so tightly that the chamber was standing-room only.

District Councilor, Michael-Paul Hart told reporters for More Perfect Union who were present on the night of the vote, “In my six years on the council, I’ve never seen all the rooms filled to the max with people waiting in the lobby. I’m overjoyed by the amount of community support that came out for this.” One local resident said: “This was do or die. We came prepared to fight with everything we have against this data center.” “I’ve been hoping that something would bring us together,” said a community organizer. “And it looks like data centers are.”

Minutes before the vote, Google abruptly withdrew its petition. The room erupted in cheers. For once, global power bent to local power.

A local business and farm owner who was concerned about water shortages or contamination that cold potentially be caused by the proposed data center commented after the win, “In a world where we are constantly being divided, everyone showed up tonight with a common goal and we won. For a long time we felt like we were four people with cardboard swords fighting a monster, but tonight it shows that people power still rings.”

This wasn’t just a feel-good moment for one Indiana township. It was part of a growing national pattern.

In Peculiar, Missouri, more than 1,000 residents joined a Facebook group called Don’t Dump Data on Peculiar. They put signs in their yards, attended council meetings. Many held prayer circles on the proposed site. Eventually their city leaders reversed an earlier zoning approval.

In Chesterton, Indiana, Provident Realty Advisors withdrew a $1.3 billion data center proposal after facing organized opposition from residents and town officials. In College Station, Texas, the city council unanimously rejected the sale of public land for a data center that would have required 600 megawatts of power, after thousands signed petitions and raised concerns about water, noise, and community impact. In San Marcos, Texas, a proposed facility was halted following public pressure over water and energy use. And in Tucson, Arizona, the city council unanimously rejected a proposed data center after residents pressed concerns about water consumption in the drought-stricken region.

Their battles are not yet over, but each of these towns acted early. They had seen what happened in Loudoun County, Virginia, which has become the data center capital of the world. Loudoun now relies on the industry for more than 30 percent of its county revenue. That money comes at a cost: endless construction, new high-voltage transmission lines, rising noise complaints, and neighborhoods that feel powerless to stop further expansion. Franklin Township and others decided they didn’t want to end up like Loudoun. They fought before the concrete was poured, and they won.

A report by Data Center Watch, a research group tracking grassroots efforts to oppose data centers states that $18 billion worth of data center projects were blocked, and another $46 billion of projects were delayed over the last two years in the face of opposition from residents and activist groups.

Why are data centers sparking such resistance? On the surface it is many things—water consumption and noise pollution among others, but the biggest complaint is about a lack of transparency which causes distrust between residents and the plans that are most often obfuscated from their sight. Residents are going to great lengths to conduct their own research by comparing promises of “jobs and investment” in their town with actual results from towns elsewhere, where locals have experienced land swallowed up, excessive water consumed, taxes diverted, and only a handful of permanent jobs left behind after construction is completed. They are finding multinational corporations arriving with lawyers often before neighbors know what’s planned for their backyards. They are sometimes finding conflicts of interest or undisclosed financial incentives between local officials and corporations. That kind of secrecy doesn’t inspire confidence and they are sharing their findings by word of mouth, from community to community, across the nation.

The effort is not against technology but against a lack of trust and the feeling of being treated as expendable. Communities are told they should sacrifice peace, land, and resources for the sake of “progress.” And those burdens are not small. Once construction crews leave, a billion-dollar facility may leave behind only a few dozen permanent jobs. The tax incentives that lured the project in are often paid up front, while the costs, such as higher utility bills, industrial traffic, or noise, linger for years, and property prices lower. Residents see the imbalance: their community bears the disruption while the profits flow elsewhere. So they are right to question: progress for whom? When the benefits are global and the burdens are local, and when facts are hidden from those who will live next door to the data behemoths it is only natural that people begin to push back and take a stand for their property, their neighbors, their local businesses and community.

It is this imbalance that has made data centers the new flashpoint in America. In the past, local opposition to projects was often dismissed under the label “NIMBY”—short for Not In My Backyard. The term was coined in the 1980s as a way to portray citizens who resisted new highways, landfills, prisons, or factories and they were often labeled as such for being hypocritical or selfish. Over time, that phrase became shorthand for narrow-minded resistance, the opposite of civic duty. It has roots in communist and socialist ideologies which seek to eliminate private property and cast a shadow on those who seek to stand up to what is most often defined as progress but is pushed upon citizens without any openness in communication. Our Founding Fathers envisioned the opposite: the right of people to own and defend their property, to steward their land, and to resist government overreach. Protecting your backyard is not selfish. It is one of the deepest American instincts, a defense of independence that preserves the possibility of community itself.

And there’s a hard truth to face: with the trajectory of the current global AI arms race, data centers are going to be built whether we like it or not. They are the infrastructure of the AI age that we cannot hide from. Every AI model, every cloud service, every video stream runs on servers in these facilities.

But that doesn’t mean they must be planned in stealth or built within earshot of people’s homes. They can be placed further out, away from dense neighborhoods. Yes, it costs more to run transmission lines and build infrastructure further afield. But the cost of harmony is worth it. Local residents shouldn’t have to bear the heaviest burdens of a global competition they never chose.

The lesson is straightforward. If citizens want to protect their communities, they must act early before rezoning makes resistance nearly impossible. They must use social media not to doomscroll, but to connect and learn and to organize. They must ask hard questions, demand real numbers, and, above all, talk to one another. And they must step beyond the narratives that divide us. Franklin, Peculiar, Chesterton, College Station, and San Marcos show what happens when communities refuse the narrative of division and link arms instead: they prove that local voices still have power in America.

What has led to seemingly impossible wins wasn’t money or lawyers, but neighbors refusing to be divided. Farmers, parents, retirees, and young families rallying together to defend the ground beneath their feet. The win in Franklin Township this wasn’t just a win for one Indiana community. It was a case study in what America can still be, when we choose to act in civic duty, stand with our neighbors and choose harmony and open communication over secrecy and division.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.