A new op-ed out of Alabama is raising a flag that’s becoming familiar across the country: as data centers multiply, the people living near them may be absorbing costs that rarely make it into the press releases.
What the op-ed says
According to AL.com, the op-ed argues that the toll data centers take on Alabamians isn’t getting the public discussion it deserves. The piece doesn’t spell out every specific harm, but the core warning is clear — communities are being asked to host massive new industrial facilities without a full public accounting of what it will cost them.
Why this matters everywhere, not just Alabama
Data centers are not like a typical office building or factory. They run around the clock, drawing enormous amounts of electricity to power servers and the cooling systems that keep those servers from overheating. In many regions, that cooling relies on significant water use, sometimes millions of gallons a day at large campuses. That demand doesn’t disappear — it shows up in local utility planning, water allocations, and infrastructure upgrades that someone has to pay for.
Utilities frequently need to build new power plants, substations, or transmission lines to serve a single large data center customer. Those costs can be spread across all ratepayers unless specific protections are negotiated. At the same time, many data center projects are recruited with substantial state and local tax abatements, meaning the public dollars that might otherwise fund schools or roads are reduced, at least for a time, in exchange for promised jobs and investment.
The accountability gap
None of this makes data centers inherently bad for a community — they can bring jobs, tax revenue over time, and investment in digital infrastructure the country needs. But the terms of these deals matter enormously, and they’re often negotiated behind closed doors before residents get a chance to weigh in. That’s the gap op-eds like this one are pointing to: the toll is real, but the conversation about it is happening late, if at all.
What residents can do
Local utility commissions, city councils, and county boards are usually the venues where power contracts, water allocations, and tax incentives for these projects get decided. Public comment periods, freedom-of-information requests for economic development agreements, and simply showing up to meetings are the most direct tools available. Readers can track how these deals compare across states on our interactive map, learn the basics of how data centers use power and water at Learn, and find concrete steps for getting involved at Take Action.
Source: AL.com