A public forum with representatives of Scale Microgrid, which is developing the proposed $6 billion data center south of Maryville, will be held Wednesday, June 3rd at the Mozingo Events Center starting at 6:00 pm. Representatives from the company will be on hand to answer any questions that people might have about the project.
Tuesday’s Nodaway County Commission meeting found people still searching for answers about the proposed project. One visitor to the meeting, Jeff From, said that there was a lot of variability on data centers. “You need to do an independent examination,” he said.
Commissioners have been working the phones talking to commissioners all over the state and the country trying to find answers on the economic impact, both good and bad, that these data centers would have on the community.
Meanwhile, people are still looking for answers. One visitor, Anna Teale of Maryville, said that she already deals with the noise outside the Kawasaki plant when they do their exercises every day and it’s recorded over a loudspeaker. She said that there were a lot of unanswered questions about the project. “Many people can’t take off work to come to the commissioner’s meetings,” she said.
Commissioner Chris Burns said that there has been no site plan, no request for abatement from the company, and no permitting applied for. Permits from the DNR are a public record and are posted on their website. “If we can’t stop the project, we may want some kind of abatement as a means to control the project,” he said. One possible way of doing it could be to do an abatement, and then have the company turn around and make a Community Benefit Payment, which could be distributed to all the schools in Nodaway County and/or all the communities.
Teale expressed concerns about property values and about altering the rural character of the county. “I want my grandkids to grow up having a rural experience. That’s why I came back here,” she said.
Mr. Burns said that he has been talking to commissioners in Montgomery County along with a school superintendent there as well as Camden and Cass Counties. Commissioner Scott Walk said that he has been talking to commissioners in Loudon County (VA), which has over 200 data centers.
One visitor, Mary Strauch, who lives right next to where the project would be built, said that she was concerned about the noise and the pollution. “The neighbors next to the nearby power station are not happy with it either,” she said. “I have a great-grandchild who plans to farm here. I want them to live to be 50.”
Mr. From expressed doubts that such a facility would last as long as proponents say it would. Data centers are used to power AI bots like Chat GPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot, and other such bots. Many charge users a monthly fee to use their bots for more than a few times, which can add up if 100 million users from around the world sign up to use, say, Grok. They also charge companies even more for more specialized use of their AI’s. However, Mr. From said that some companies were turning back to human employees, finding that the cost to use AI’s was not worth it. Also, there are certain things that AI’s are still not good at; for instance, there are plenty of YouTube videos of lawyers getting in trouble with judges and/or the state bar association after they used AI to make legal briefs, only to find out that the cases cited were completely fictitious or did not say what the AI’s said they did.
Commissioner Scott Walk said he found from talking to Loudon County officials was that there were no clusters of people with high rates of cancer despite there being over 200 data centers there for 20 years. There were issues with pollution, especially with heavy metals. The water has to be treated extensively, especially from corrosion, before disposal. The data center would have to follow DNR permitting requirements and rules like everyone else.
Mr. Walk said that there would also be pollution from the natural gas generator that the center would use to produce its own electricity. It would have to have an air permit. He said that while they can mitigate the pollution from the gas generators, there are certain pollutants that they can’t mitigate yet. He pledged to keep raising questions with the DNR, but said that he got transferred four times when he called them, and the person he finally talked to didn’t have any more answers on data centers than anyone else.
Mr. Walk acknowledged that noise was one of the biggest issues that data centers have, and that from talking to Loudon County commissioners, noise complaints were one of the biggest complaints that they got regarding the centers there. Presiding Commissioner Bill Walker said that they were trying to get answers like everyone else. “Whenever we get concrete answers, we will communicate them,” he pledged.
Another issue that came up Tuesday was water loss. Ms. Teale noted that there were communities that she read about with data centers that were dealing with water quality issues. Nodaway County Economic Developer Josh McKim said that the company and the City of Maryville and/or the Rural Water District could enter a contract not to exceed a certain amount of daily water usage, which brought up the question of what would happen if the company hit its maximum. One possible solution would be to drill for water underneath the table; however, it could affect water quality for the surrounding area. Other data centers have trucked water in when they have hit their maximum. There is an untapped reserve in Andrew County near Amazonia.
Commissioners pledged to keep seeking answers regarding the impact of the data center. “We want to do what’s best for Nodaway County,” he pledged.
Flooding from Saturday and Monday’s storms affected Nodaway County. There was water over the road just west of the Honey Creek Bridge near the late Eldon Hart’s old house; DOT crews came and closed the road. Highway 71 at the Nodaway River just north of Clearmont was closed due to water over the road. John White of Hopkins Township reported that there was flooding that washed out gravel on Highway 246 & Leopard Road east of Hopkins. There were issues with gravel washing off the roads. There were leaks in the upstairs hallway, two spots in the juvenile office, and one in the sheriff’s office. Commissioners adjourned early to look at roads.
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