00:00A storage tank at a data center failed on Friday night, and about 5,000 gallons of diesel ran into
00:07a creek feeding a river that is already a federal Superfund site.
00:12It happened in New Jersey, but the argument it touched off is playing out in town halls, courtrooms and on
00:19-ballots from Ohio to Virginia this week.
00:23We begin in the New Jersey Meadowlands, where cleanup crews spent the weekend pulling diesel fuel out of a creek.
00:31About 5,000 gallons leaked from a storage tank at an Equinix data center in Secaucus and ran into Anderson
00:39Creek, a tributary of the Hackensack River.
00:43State environmental officials say the fuel was contained before it reached the river itself.
00:48Bill Sheehan, who has been the Hackensack Riverkeeper for decades, says he finds that hard to believe.
00:56The tributaries, he put it, are the capillary system of the whole ecosystem.
01:02The timing could hardly be worse.
01:04The Hackensack has been on the federal Superfund list since 2022 and is on the edge of a major restoration
01:12effort.
01:13Sheehan called the spill a slap in the face to all of that work.
01:17And he wants the state to pursue a natural resource damages claim.
01:23Secaucus Mayor Michael Ginelli says he wants to go after the company as best he can.
01:29That anger is being channeled into something more durable than a protest sign.
01:34In Ohio, voters in 18 municipalities and townships will decide the future of data centers in their own.
01:43Communities on November 3rd, nine of those petitions mirror a statewide effort to ban any facility drawing more than 25
01:51megawatts.
01:53Hubbard is voting on an outright ban.
01:56Urbana set its line at 7.5 megawatts.
01:59Two townships in Adams County are voting on zoning plans written specifically to preserve what they
02:05call their rural and agricultural character.
02:09After a proposal surfaced that would use more than 20 times as much power as the entire county.
02:1614 of the 18 communities already have a formal data center proposal on file.
02:22And this is happening in a state with the fourth most operational data centers in the country.
02:27Which tells you the backlash is strongest exactly where the industry is densest.
02:34Nowhere is that clearer than in Pickway.
02:37A city of about 20,000 in western Ohio.
02:41Where residents are not waiting for the next election to change their government.
02:46Petitions to recall Mayor James Vetter.
02:49Vice Mayor Frank Debris and Commissioner Rick Walker have each cleared the 1,250 signature threshold.
02:57Verified by the Miami County Board of Elections.
03:01A separate charter amendment that would prohibit data centers.
03:05Cryptocurrency mining and other high-intensity computing facilities inside the city drew 13.
03:12119 valid signatures.
03:15The organizer, Alicia Lang, says she started gathering names after Meta announced plans for a campus in
03:27Four petitions were filed Monday.
03:29One to loosen the city's recall rules.
03:32Another to strike down the agreement that would supply the project's power.
03:37Even the data centers dividing us, she said, are bringing us together.
03:44That question of who decides is now being asked in the one place that has never asked it.
03:49Loudoun County, Virginia.
03:52Data Center Alley, the densest concentration of data centers anywhere on the planet, is preparing
03:59to debate two amendments that would fundamentally reshape how these projects get approved.
04:05The first is a temporary pause on accepting new applications.
04:09The second would eliminate the grandfather clause that lets older filings bypass public hearings.
04:16Entirely, together they would mean every future data center in Loudoun needs a special exception.
04:23Which means a hearing.
04:25Which means a board vote.
04:27Supervisor Julie Briskman, who is running for chair,
04:31says the county needs to pump the brakes and revisit its zoning standards.
04:36Laura Tekroni is pushing the grandfather repeal.
04:39The pause report is due today.
04:41The grandfather amendment comes up October 6th.
04:45And one county over.
04:47Prince William's Planning Commission has just recommended ending by right approval as well.
04:54Some places have decided they do not want a hearing process at all.
04:59Woodford County.
05:00Kentucky has become the first county in the state to ban data center construction permanently.
05:06Not a moratorium.
05:08Not a pause.
05:10A permanent prohibition.
05:11Passed unanimously by the fiscal court.
05:14Which also bars new landfills and large battery storage systems.
05:19Judge executive James K. framed it.
05:22As protecting what the county actually runs on.
05:25Rolling pastures and thoroughbred farms that sit at the center of its economy.
05:30He said residents were essentially universal in their opposition.
05:34And that the county wanted to avoid the kind of drawn out.
05:38Divisive fight that played out in neighboring Mercer County.
05:42The data center coalition.
05:44The industry's trade group.
05:46Called the ban anti-business and argued communities should be building regulatory frameworks with.
05:52Developers rather than shutting the door.
05:55Woodford County's answer was that it had already decided what it wanted to be.
06:01The reason these fights keep landing on utility bills is that most residents never learn the.
06:07Numbers until it is far too late.
06:10Portland City Council votes this week on a resolution aimed squarely at that problem.
06:15It urges city officials not to sign non-disclosure agreements with data center developers.
06:22And it would require immediate public notification whenever a company seeks to build or expand a.
06:29Facility drawing 20 megawatts or more.
06:32Sponsors argue that NDAs are how enormous utility demands stay invisible until a project is already.
06:38Approved and effectively unstoppable.
06:42The Oregon figures behind the push are striking.
06:45Data centers now consume 5.6% of the state's electricity.
06:51And customers of Portland General Electric and Pacific Power have watched their bills climb roughly.
06:5750%.
06:58Portland itself hosts 17 smaller facilities and no hyperscale campus.
07:04Unlike Hillsborough, Seattle and Tacoma, which have all moved to moratoriums or bans.
07:12And while all of that plays out, the build-out itself has not slowed down for a second.
07:18Meta announced an expansion of its Eagle Mountain campus in Utah on Monday.
07:23A move that pushes the company's total investment in the state past $3 billion.
07:29Up from about $1.5 billion before this phase.
07:33The company says the work will support more than 1,200 construction jobs at peak.
07:39And more than 300 permanent positions once it is finished.
07:43Alongside it came roughly $2.5 million in community spending.
07:49$450,000 for a new astronomy park at Walden Park.
07:53$600,000 for the newly created Lake Mountain School District to buy three acres for a.
08:00Future elementary school.
08:01And $1.5 million committed to the district's education foundation.
08:07Meta broke ground at Eagle Mountain in 2018 and has expanded three times since.
08:14And the capital lining up behind all of it keeps getting larger and more patient.
08:20Brookfield Asset Management, which oversees more than a trillion dollars in assets,
08:25has agreed to acquire a minority stake in American real estate partners.
08:31The parent company of Powerhouse data centers.
08:34Terms were not disclosed.
08:36And the deal is set to close in the fourth quarter.
08:40Powerhouse was only founded in 2022.
08:42But its development pipeline reportedly already tops 8 gigawatts.
08:48With projects operating or under development in Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky,
08:55Indiana, Illinois, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
08:59Ben Brown, co-president of Brookfield's real estate group, framed it plainly.
09:05We are in the early stages.
09:07He said, of a multi-decade build out of the physical infrastructure required for AI.
09:14Multi-decade.
09:15That is the word worth sitting with.
09:17Because it is the industry telling you exactly how long it expects these local fights to last.
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