QUESTIONS COMMUNITIES
ARE ACTUALLY ASKING

A lot, potentially. Large data centers use evaporative cooling systems that can consume millions of gallons per day. In The Dalles, Oregon, Google's water use grew from 104 million gallons in 2012 to 434 million gallons in 2024, eventually consuming roughly a third of the city's total water supply. In Mesa, Arizona, Google secured rights to up to 4 million gallons per day.

That said, facilities vary widely. Air-cooled and closed-loop systems use dramatically less water. The key is knowing which cooling technology a developer is proposing and whether there are enforceable caps written into the agreement. If the answer to either question is "we'll figure it out later," that's a red flag.

It can. A single large data center can draw hundreds of megawatts, enough to materially shift who pays for grid upgrades. In Michigan, the MPSC found that one 1 GW data center could raise residential rates 5-10%. In Georgia, regulators approved $16.3 billion in new generation capacity driven almost entirely by data center demand, with total ratepayer costs estimated at $50-60 billion over the life of the assets.

The good news is that Michigan's new data center tariff (November 2025) now requires minimum 15-year contracts, 80% capacity take-or-pay obligations, and exit fees specifically designed to prevent cost-shifting to residential customers. Whether your community benefits from those protections depends on how the project is structured locally.

Fewer than you'd think for the permanent operation. Census Bureau data shows a typical 250,000 sq ft data center employs about 50 full-time workers, or roughly 1 job per 5,000 square feet (compared to 1 per 1,500 for a warehouse). A major project might generate 2,400 construction jobs but only 150 permanent operations roles.

Those permanent jobs do tend to pay well. Virginia data center workers averaged $134,000/year. And in places like Loudoun County, the broader ecosystem (fiber, electrical, security, maintenance) supports 12,000+ jobs. But those ecosystem jobs took decades and 200+ facilities to develop. A single facility in a rural Michigan township is a different story. Ask for specifics: how many permanent FTEs, at what wages, with what local hiring commitments, in writing.

Data centers can generate enormous tax revenue when the deal is structured well. Loudoun County, Virginia collects roughly $890 million per year from data centers. That money has funded $1 billion in road improvements and 36 new schools over 15 years. For every $1 in county services data centers consume there, they return $26 in tax revenue.

But Loudoun negotiated from a position of knowledge. Many communities don't. If a developer is asking for a 10- or 20-year tax abatement, you need to understand exactly what you're giving up, what the guaranteed minimum payments are, and what happens if the company downsizes or leaves. A tax incentive without a clawback provision is just a discount with no strings attached.

They can be. Noise is one of the most common complaints from people who already live near a data center. Cooling equipment generates 75-95 dBA at the source, and the low-frequency hum travels farther than you'd expect. In Chandler, Arizona, over 300 residents signed a petition about constant noise from a CyrusOne facility; some described windows rattling at night. In Prince William County, Virginia, police measured 60 dBA from a resident's yard near AWS data centers, above the 55 dBA nighttime limit.

The EPA says 55 dBA outdoors is the maximum before health effects begin. The WHO recommends below 40-45 dBA at night. If the proposed site is within a few hundred feet of homes, noise should be one of the first things on the table, with specific dBA limits measured at the property line (not at the source) written into the approval.

Pretty much. A typical data center is a large, windowless building, often 50-75 feet tall, surrounded by fencing, backup generators, cooling equipment, and security infrastructure. Industrial in character even if it doesn't produce smoke or visible activity.

What matters most is siting and screening. Fairfax County, Virginia now requires a 200-foot setback from residential lots, a 300-foot setback for generators and mechanical equipment, and a 50-foot landscaped buffer. Buildings are capped at 75 feet and most new facilities require a special exception rather than by-right approval. Your community can set similar or stricter standards. If the developer says "trust us, it'll look fine," ask them to put the design standards in the conditional use permit.

This is a real concern and one that tends to get underestimated. In Richland Parish, Louisiana, traffic on the highway in front of an elementary school nearly tripled after Meta broke ground on a $27 billion data center campus. Crashes on surrounding roads went from 9 in all of 2024 to 64 in the first nine months of 2025, a 600%+ increase.

Meta ultimately committed over $300 million to local road, water, and wastewater infrastructure. But that commitment came after construction was already underway. The time to negotiate road repair agreements, traffic routing plans, and construction hour limits is before the first shovel hits the ground. At peak, large projects can have 5,000 construction workers commuting to the site daily.

Every data center has backup diesel generators, sometimes hundreds of them. They're there for power outages, but the cumulative capacity is staggering. Virginia alone has permitted nearly 9,000 diesel generators at data centers, representing 12 GW of diesel generation. A VCU study found that data center generators already account for 11% of nitrogen oxide emissions from Northern Virginia point sources, and those generators are running at only 4-7% of what their permits allow.

In practical terms: at full permitted capacity, data center generators in Northern Virginia would produce 74% of the region's point-source NOx and 50% of its particulate matter. Your community should know how many generators are planned, what the permitted run hours are, and whether there are emissions monitoring requirements.

Complicated. The big tech companies all claim to be powered by 100% renewable energy, but a lot of that is based on buying Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), essentially paying for clean energy generated somewhere else, not necessarily at the time or place the data center is actually using power. In September 2025, 16 state attorneys general launched an investigation into Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft over exactly this practice.

Meanwhile, Google's total emissions have risen 51% since 2019. Microsoft's are up 23.4%. The efficiency gains are real, and top facilities achieve remarkable energy performance, but total consumption keeps growing faster than efficiency improves. If a developer promises "net zero," ask what that means operationally, not just on paper.

Data centers are major infrastructure, like a power plant or a logistics hub. The outcome depends almost entirely on how the project is structured, negotiated, and governed. Loudoun County, Virginia leveraged data center growth into $890 million in annual tax revenue, 36 new schools, and the lowest property tax rate in the region. Other communities approved projects with weak agreements and ended up with noise complaints, strained infrastructure, and little to show for it.

The communities that do best are the ones that come to the table prepared. They know what to measure, what to require, and what to put in writing. Developers have property rights and projects that meet local standards deserve a fair process. Communities also have a responsibility to set clear terms. When both sides know the rules, projects move faster, get built better, and last longer.

Start with the basics that most presentations skip: How many gallons of water per day, peak and average? What cooling technology, specifically? What's the peak electrical load in megawatts, and who pays for the grid upgrades? How many permanent full-time employees after construction, and at what wage levels? What are the noise levels at the nearest property line? How many diesel generators, what's their permitted run time, and what are the emissions?

Then ask about the deal: What's the effective tax rate after incentives? Is there a minimum guaranteed annual payment? What happens if the company downsizes in year 5? Who pays to restore the roads after construction? Is any of this enforceable, and how?

If the developer can't or won't answer these questions in specifics, that tells you something important about how the negotiation will go.

That's what we built. Our standards framework covers eight impact areas: water, power, jobs, fiscal structure, noise, land use, construction, and community integration. For each one, we define what to measure, what engineering controls exist, what policy tools are available, and how to monitor compliance. Everything is free, public, and built for Michigan communities.