US Communities Protest Data Center Expansion Over Environmental, Health, and Economic Concerns

When construction on a major Amazon data center in the small rural county of Frederick, Maryland, got underway, community activist Elizabeth Bauer found her peace with it.

But when it expanded by about 1,000 acres beyond its original plans to dig into green space and farmland without addressing the community's concerns, she took a stand.

Together with other locals she is protesting the proximity of the construction site to residential areas, which she says is causing dust and pollution that is exacerbating asthma among the population.

"I'm okay with data centers in the right place. I'm not okay with them taking prime farmland," Bauer said.

Protest against data centers is getting louder

Bipartisan backlash against data centers has gotten louder in the US, with nationwide demonstrations calling on politicians to take action.

The US District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia region has been a flashpoint. Virgina alone has currently around 640 data centers listed.

These conflicts are not only related to the construction phase, but longer-term impacts. Data centers require vast amounts of energy to operate — as much electricity as 100,000 households, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But those under construction could consume 20 times as much, largely due to the increased demand for data storage and processing capabilities needed to support AI development and use.

Overall, data centers account for 4.4% of US power, but a study by investment banking firm Goldman Sachs projects an increase of up to 8.5% by the end of 2027.

Data centers devour power and water

The battle in Frederick reflects the tensions across the US, which is already home to 4,600 data centers — around 1,000 more than the next 10 countries combined.

Almost 40% of citizens live within a five-mile radius of at least one, and that number is likely to rise given that more than 1,500 more sites are under construction. Nowhere in the world is the concentration higher than in North Virginia.

This is all happening against a backdrop of discontent, with a recent Gallup poll suggesting that 71% of the population opposes data center development in their communities.

Data centers can use up to five million gallons of water each day (as much as a city of 50,000). Yet, it is not uncommon for them to be built in areas under water stress. According to the US drought monitor, Frederick County is experiencing a severe drought.

Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics at Harvard's School of Public health, said tech companies also regularly disregard this concern.

"They're not looking at the water issues at all," she told DW. "They prioritize where they can get the land cheaper, where they can get the local politician to give the approval faster."

Higher fuel bills and air pollution

States with high concentrations of data centers have seen a 267% increase in electricity prices over the last five years.

"Electric utilities are building massive amounts of new transmission lines to serve data centers," said Hannah Wiseman, a professor in environmental law at Penn State University. "But the costs of those transmission lines are being socialized among the rate payers."

There are also concerns that data centers could overburden the grid meaning they have to resort to backup diesel generators. In the case of the Frederick community, the planned center would have 99 diesel generators, which comes with health risks.

"Exposure to fine particulate matter, even at a low level, [means] increased risk of birth defect, respiratory, cardiovascular, neurocognitive and early deaths," said Harvard's Dominici, adding that they also threaten local wildlife and minimize plant growth and yield.

How are data centers regulated?

Despite negative effects on communities, Wiseman said that the locations of data centers are mostly overseen at the municipality level, and that many states offer data center developers a regulatory environment that allows rapid development, regardless of proximity to people or nature.

"Lots of local governments have chosen not to issue land use regulation, in which case a data center developer can pretty much do whatever they want."

At a federal level, US President Donald Trump cut red tape for developing data centers as part of his 2025 executive order "Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI."

Many tech companies have insisted that localities sign non-disclosure agreements to limit communities' understanding of the scale of the projects and consequences of widespread resource consumption.

So instead of inviting resident input, they are working directly with municipality officials to draw up their plans.

Wiseman also noted that tech and development companies are increasingly collaborating with state governments in establishing zoning and power consumption standards.

"They've been involved in all the state regulatory proceedings to create special electricity rates for data centers," she said. "It appears that tech companies are getting more involved now in the many state legislative proposals to preempt local control."

How tech companies respond to the pushback

Though tech companies argue that data centers invigorate local economies, a University of Michigan study found that they generate temporary construction jobs to local communities, but not long-term tech positions.

There are some suggestions that these companies are looking to build trust with local communities. In March, Microsoft stopped using NDAs with local governments for data center development, saying they wanted to build more trust with their neighbors. And Meta says it is piloting and deploying low-carbon concrete in data center construction.

Dominici says she sees "a win-win future path" that combines technological advancement with community benefit. "I would love to see nonpartisan scientific evaluation of all the impact, and the data center can act based on minimizing this impact as much as possible."

Putting the brakes on, at least temporarily

And protests in local communities seem to have paid off. Just last week, New York became the first US state to halt construction of new large-scale data centers for up to a year. Moratoriums have also been proposed in other states, and some counties and municipalities have issued their own temporary bans.

In Frederick, Bauer and fellow activists continue to push back against the data center going up in their back yard. They've collected enough signatures to propose the ordinance be subject to a referendum in the county elections, though any idea of that happening was quashed by Maryland's supreme court.

The county has responded to this blowback by issuing a temporary pause on new data center construction, yet Bauer feels the democratic process failed Frederick residents.

"The average citizen has no chance," she said. "This whole effort was not to fight data centers, it was to give people a voice."

Despite challenges, Bauer still sees hope. She said there are county council candidates in the upcoming Frederick election that oppose expansion.

"If the new council comes in, they can overturn this map completely," she said. "We're disappointed, but we are not giving up."