Developers and their PR teams use the same talking points across the country. Here are the most common ones, and what the evidence actually says.
"Data centers bring lots of jobs."
Construction jobs are temporary and mostly filled by traveling crews. Once operational, a hyperscale data center campus is highly automated and employs only a few dozen permanent staff, typically 30 to 50 for a 300-acre site. The buildings are huge; the on-site headcount is not.
"Property tax revenue from the data center will lower everyone else's taxes."
Data center deals routinely include property-tax abatements, PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-tax) agreements, or industrial revenue bonds that reduce or eliminate local property tax revenue from the facility for 10 to 30 years, exactly the period when local impacts are greatest. Ask the City whether any abatement is being negotiated, and what the actual net revenue is across the abatement window.
"Closed-loop cooling means almost no water use."
Closed-loop uses less water than evaporative cooling, but it still requires makeup water plus water for site needs (potable, fire, irrigation, dust control). And cooling design is not codified in local ordinance; it lives in the developer's design documents. Operators routinely convert to higher-water-use cooling later for capacity or workload reasons. The right standard is an enforceable, written commitment with measurable performance and inspection authority, not marketing language.
"The grid upgrades won't cost ratepayers anything."
That depends entirely on the tariff structure approved by the Kansas Corporation Commission, not on developer reassurance. Under most existing large-load tariffs, the cost of new transmission and substation capacity is partially socialized across the full ratepayer base. The relevant filings are public. See Electricity and who pays on the Proposal page.
"Data centers are quiet."
Cooling fans run 24/7 and diesel backup generators are tested every month. Field measurements at operating campuses regularly show continuous property-line noise in the 60 to 85 dBA range, comparable to standing next to a busy highway, around the clock. Communities living next to existing data center clusters in Loudoun County, VA and Chandler, AZ have documented sleep disruption and chronic noise complaints.
"If it doesn't go here, it'll just go somewhere else."
Hyperscale siting is highly constrained by power, water, fiber, and land. Communities that organize and impose meaningful conditions (buffer setbacks, noise standards, water-supply caps, decommissioning bonds, real tax-abatement scrutiny) have repeatedly forced changes to projects or stopped them outright. The fact that a project could go somewhere else is not a reason to accept it here on whatever terms are offered.
"Industrial zoning is normal for areas near logistics parks."
Nearby industrial development is not a blanket permit for more industrial development, especially at this scale. The impacts of a hyperscale data center (continuous noise, light, water draw, traffic, electrical infrastructure) extend well beyond the parcel boundary. Industrial zoning adjacent to rural residential land is a significant change in land-use character, and it shapes what gets built on every adjacent parcel for decades.
"It's just like any other commercial building."
It isn't. A hyperscale data center is a heavy industrial facility with industrial-grade power, water, noise, and emissions. That's why it requires industrial zoning, not standard commercial zoning. The zoning category itself is the clearest signal that this is not a normal commercial development.
"This will help the environment because it's modern."
"Modern" doesn't mean clean. These facilities draw enormous amounts of electricity (often from fossil-fuel-heavy grids), use real volumes of water, and run diesel backup generators on site. The local environmental impact (air, noise, light, water, traffic) is real, regardless of what corporate sustainability reports say.
"You're just a small group of NIMBYs."
The questions on this site (water, power, noise, air quality, taxes, decommissioning, emergency response, and process) are the same questions raised by communities of every size and political stripe across the country. They are reasonable land-use questions for any heavy industrial proposal next to homes, schools, and farms. Asking them is not obstructionism; it is what a healthy planning process is supposed to do.
