Recently I attended the City Council meeting where a moratorium on AI Data Centers was discussed. I am all for economic development, but I wish we could have taken more time to research and actually discuss as a community the concerns with Data Centers. At that meeting we heard from our economic development representative and Alliant Energy representative, both who stand to gain from a Data Center in Marshalltown. No one from water works was there nor any environmental specialists, nor any other cities with experience were there.

Some questions the community deserves to have answered before going forward are: what will the water demand be; how much will our local electricity bills increase; can the noise, light and other pollution attributed to data centers be mitigated; will we get stuck with an NDA (non-disclosure agreement); how many permanent jobs will be left after construction; will construction be done by local contractors or out-of-town and out-of-state companies; what if any controls do we have as a community, since there are no current regulations pertaining to data centers? Information from other cities tend to report electric bills increase, very few permanent jobs are created, NDAs are common so the public has very little access to information, most, if not all, profits go out of town. I wish our city councilors would have done their due diligence before voting against a moratorium.