During a Tuesday meeting, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners voted to extend its moratorium on new data centers through Sept. 30.
For the second time in less than two weeks, commissioners heard concerns about the potential impact of data centers. Residents urged them to extend the moratorium for a year and adopt regulations that they say would protect their neighborhoods.
“It’s pretty clear how we feel,” Conley resident Brandon Brown told commissioners.
Concerns of contaminated water supply, rising power bills and property damage are being raised across rural and suburban communities. Many residents say local governments have failed to adequately protect communities as technology companies invest billions of dollars in new data center projects.
A June 9 episode of “More Perfect Union” featuring U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent visit to Georgia highlighted residents from DeKalb County, Forest Park, Coweta County, Morgan County and Newton County who say data center development has damaged property and left them feeling ignored by both developers and elected officials.
Several residents in the video helped push DeKalb County officials to enact the moratorium last year.
Coweta County residents living visibly close to the Meta Newton Data Center in Social Circle shared jars of their contaminated brown water.
In Newton County, resident Patricia Shepherd shared photos of crumbled ceilings that she says are due to blasts during construction of an Amazon Web Services data center.
“Nobody from Amazon has bothered to say one word,” Shepherd said in the video. “It was three blasts a day, seven days a week for months.”
In Forest Park, Pamela Felder showed the congresswoman lines of cracks in her walls and ceilings, and across the concrete of her porch. A 2-million-square-foot data center is being built less than a mile away.
Felder said the damage appeared shortly after a blast that felt as if her house had been lifted and dropped forcefully.
Power and Protection
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez says the proliferation of data centers is about power. Last March, she and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act. The legislation would place a pause on the development of AI data centers while policymakers work on protections related to residents’ concerns across the U.S.
At Tuesday’s DeKalb Board of Commissioners meeting, residents who fear data centers questioned whether officials are protecting their communities and suggested “kickbacks” tied to development can influence decisions.
Commissioners rejected those accusations.
“I work every day to protect the rights and the dignity and character of DeKalb County and its citizens,” Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson said.
“Just as passionate and committed and convicted as you are, we are as well,” Commissioner Nicole Massiah said to residents. “And it is even more of a challenge for us when we hear and we feel the concerns of the community…”
As DeKalb county officials figure out protections, cities such as Union City and Forest Park have already approved zoning for data centers over residents’ objections. Forest Park is located in Clayton County, which has a moratorium on data centers.
In College Park, city council approved rezoning in 2024 to allow for a battery energy storage facility without providing advance notice to the public. The approval was tied to a $1.6 million payment to the city.
Leave a comment