On January 28, the newly-minted City Council convened for a special meeting to discuss a proposed data center, meant to be built at I-10 and Read Boulevard in New Orleans East. The proposal, put forth by a company called MS Solar Grid Data, was met with public outrage: The project would have placed the data center in a historically neglected part of New Orleans, provided a paltry 30 to 40 jobs, while emitting fine particulate matter airborne pollution. Critics also allege that the “solar” part of the company’s name is misleading, as they do not appear to be a solar developer. The data center was supposedly planned to be solar-powered, but plans for the facility were not submitted to the city. Driven by the boom of large language models (LLMs)—a subset of so-called “generative artificial intelligence”—which have an extremely high energy demand, there are now nearly 3,000 data centers under construction across the country, a massive increase to the roughly 4,000 already in existence in the United States. The power demand from these data centers has contributed to electricity costs which have grown at twice the rate of inflation. Data centers consume a mind-boggling amount of water (estimates vary from 5 million to hundreds of millions of gallons of freshwater per day, the lower end of which is roughly the demand of a small city) at a time when the world is reaching what experts call “water bankruptcy.” In response to local opposition, municipalities in Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Kansas, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Idaho, California, Pennsylvania, and Indiana have blocked or outright banned data center developments. At the meeting, the Council passed a one-year ban on data centers, and the prospective owner reportedly withdrew their proposal for the project. The following are a selection of comments submitted online for the Council. They have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
The East has been put through enough over the years. Give [it] resources, not a data center which will ravage water supply and ultimately further hinder a community which so rightfully deserves positive growth.1Mary S.
I oppose the buildout of data centers in New Orleans. We do not need to build out new fossil fuel infrastructure in order to power the operations of companies that don’t provide much employment and only enrich Silicon Valley elites. The data centers are also thirsty for fresh water, and need water the most at the time of year when New Orleans is most vulnerable to saltwater intrusion. Data centers are a bad deal for the city!2Nicholas B.
Respectfully, the city of New Orleans has no business entertaining discussion of a data center until we can supply clean, reliable power for our residents and businesses 365 days a year. We are uniquely positioned to suffer from the emissions of powering a data center with fossil fuels, and it would [be] shameful for us to pollute our environment even more when we are already dealing with the acute effects of climate change here in New Orleans.3Zoe J.
Hello, please do not re-zone Little Woods neighborhood in New Orleans East and do not allow MS Solar Grid Data to build a data center in the area. It’s very clear that a data center nearby would use too much electricity and would affect the neighborhood’s water supply! Additionally, as I’m sure the City Council is already aware, neighbors are worried about more noise, bright lights, traffic, and lower property values surrounding their homes. I urge the City Council to think “people first” and stop putting economic growth over the livelihood of its constituents. Build more single family homes. Make better spaces for gardens, trees, and grass. Create more areas for things like farmers markets where local growers can share and sell their sustainable goods! Do not allow a data center to be built!4Christopher H.
I am against rezoning to allow a data center to be built in the East. Allowing a data center here would result in higher utilities and even more stress on our already outdated and struggling water infrastructure. Locating the data center in the East is clearly environmental racism. Like most other polluting industries, they are targeting areas where they believe people won’t have the means to fight back and where representatives and people in power are willing to trade residents’ health and wellbeing for the empty promise of new jobs and income. This data center will not benefit us as a city. I implore you to consider this as if you were one of the residents living directly across the street from the planned data center.5Camille C.
Data centers should not be newly built anywhere, and especially not in predominantly Black, Brown, and Asian communities in New Orleans East. If you want to build something to help the residents there, build more supermarkets, build a community center for young people to practice the arts or work on their athleticism. Data centers have been proven to pull more resources (energy, water, oxygen) than they provide, and leave residents with the financial and environmental bill. AI technology has yet to prove its value to the betterment of people. We should be focused on education and enrichment of the people of New Orleans, and not LLMs that most CEOs would wish to replace us.6Nigel H.
The residents of New Orleans East have been an [after]thought in the decades following Hurricane Katrina. Having to deal with the influx of people displaced from other areas of the city with no resources to accommodate them. Instead of grocery stores, shopping centers, things to stimulate the economy in the East, you want to build a data center, is that correct? For what? That already crumbling infrastructure can’t even manage what we have now. Data centers require water pumps, so you expect the city to go without adequate water pumps when it floods but the data center gets water pumps? A lot of people are without clean water and data centers require clean water so residents don’t deserve clean water but data centers do? Lastly, the electricity is unstable and a data center won’t be doing our power grids any favors. I speak for myself, my family, my neighborhood, all of the New Orleans Indians that came before me and all of the ones that are going to come after me: Keep these data centers out of New Orleans.7Mia T.
I vehemently object to ANY data centers, much less in my beloved city of New Orleans. Data centers use absurd amounts of energy and water. Not only is this bad for the planet, but it leads to increased electricity and water bills for residents. The big tech companies who foisted these data centers upon us without our consent never seem to be the ones footing the bill; they reap the benefits while the rest of us end up struggling to survive while robots take our jobs. There have been cases of residents near data centers contracting cancer. That is another reason we don’t need them in New Orleans, which already lies at the butthole of Cancer Alley.8Sheila T.
To follow up on this issue, you can email your City councilmembers. To submit a public comment, follow instructions at council.nola.gov. Interested in reading all comments after a meeting? You can email your councilmember or file a public records request.
