Low water pressure, frequent power outages and constant humming are all a risk that people may encounter once AI data centers are built near homes. Late last year there was a proposal for a highly controversial AI data center to be built on protected land in St. Charles, right by Highway 370: Project Cumulus.
“I don’t think that big data centers belong in the city,” city council member Bill Otto said. “It’s just too much to ask the residents to put up with, with the impact on the water and the electric and all these other things we just don’t understand or know about. My job is to represent their opinions and I believe that the ward is 90 percent against data centers.”
The idea for this project was to build a $1 billion, 440-acre, 1.5 million square-foot data center to help with the high demand of artificial intelligence. The project was proposed to St. Charles City Council, though there was a heavy lack of information given to them on the idea which led them to feel unsure.
“They want to build a data center, but they won’t reveal to us who the data center is going to serve or what its purpose is,” Otto said.
Data centers pop up more around the country as more businesses seek to use AI in their workplaces, whether or not employees and customers care to use it.
“It’s just growing so fast, it’s almost like a gold rush,” English teacher Amy Stoker said. “Whenever something new is discovered or created, everybody rushes to build and then you realize you don’t need that much to build. So, there needs to be a pause, or at least a filter on, let’s gradually roll this out. Instead, it’s just a mad rush and a mad building. We may not need half the data centers they end up building.”
Project Cumulus’ risk factors led to very heavy backlash against the project from the community. There was a petition started against the data center, by local resident Scott Stratton-Henderson, which gained thousands of signatures in the span of just a few days. There were organized movements held called “Stop the Hazardous Data Center,” where people would wear red and hold up signs, protesting at city council meetings. Awareness was spread through these protests, social media and community meetings.
“[The community] responded quickly and very negatively,” Otto said.
Due to the heavy amounts of backlash from the community, the idea of Project Cumulus was withdrawn.
“The reason that [Project Cumulus] got killed as a proposal is because the applicant withdrew the proposal,” Otto said. “They saw the writing on the wall I believe, and that it wasn’t going to be approved.”
After seeing the negative responses and the now withdrawal of the proposal, St. Charles City Council decided to put a one year moratorium on any data center applications for the city, and plan to do much more against them.
“We would not entertain applications for data centers,” Otto said.
