Data Center Concerns Spill Over at Cass County Planning Commission as Hundreds of Residents Show Up to Oppose
by Lewis Thune
(Picture credit Lewis Thune)
WEEPING WATER – The Cass County Planning Commission welcomed more than 200 concerned citizens to its Monday meeting in Weeping Water amid county and statewide concern over new AI data center construction.
While the only official item on the agenda was an amendment regarding industrial zoning, prior reports of a new data center caused hundreds of worried Cass County residents to show up to voice their opposition.
Tenaska, the Nebraska-based energy company at the heart of the data center controversy, has quietly optioned nearly 1300 acres off Highway 75 in Cass County. The goal is to build a joint data center project with Google.
The opposition is being led by a group called Cass County Data Center Watch, which is demanding an immediate moratorium, like those in Seward and Gage counties.
The commission elected to pass their amendment, as Chairman Alan Mueller urged, simply to stop it from spilling over into a fourth consecutive month of considerations. Then Mueller moved to raise the point about a moratorium, which would occupy the rest of the meeting.
“Would it be better to suggest a moratorium on data centers for a certain period of time?” Chairman Alan Mueller asked the commission. “We wouldn’t accept applications in the county for six months? Nine months? Until our rules are completed?”
When planning commission member Michael Stroy jokingly suggested a ten year moratorium, the assembled audience broke into a applause. Though the ultimate decision on a moratorium will rest with the County Board of Commissioners, Nicholas Rayer motioned that the Planning Board issue the Board a recommendation in favor of a moratorium, a motion which was also interrupted by a spate of applause.
It passed 8-1, with George Tesar Jr. the only vote against. Yet it did little to assuage public’s fears when Mueller opened the microphone for public comment.
“This data center is going to affect the nighttime sky, bird migration, all that,” said one man. “All that, all the environmental stuff we’re concerned about.”
Another woman wondered what worsening affect they might have on drought:
“They will get the water first. We will not. Do you know why we’re not having brown outs in Nebraska? Because we’re stopping AI data centers.”
Similar points were raised by a plethora of speakers over the allotted half an hour of public comments. Not one spoke in favor of the data centers.
“Gage County, Otoe County, ten other counties across Nebraska have said we don’t want these here, we’re putting a moratorium in place,” said a man toward the end of the comment period. “What Tenasca’s trying to do is find the weakest link. They’re trying to find which county commission they can push around.”
One of the final speakers pledged that he would see the board in 18 months, when their recommended 18 month moratorium would come to its end.
“I don’t think that thousands of watts of power and millions of gallons of water are worth 30 or 50 jobs.”
If the Cass County Board of Commissioners accepts the Planning Commission’s recommendation, it will become just the latest Nebraska county to suspend the construction of AI infrastructure until its regulatory standards are clearly-defined.
— Lewis Thune is a writing fellow with The Plains Sentinel.