NAACP ‘Stop Dirty Data’ conference probes data center effects

As the construction of data centers expands — with more being built in Black, brown and low-income communities and harming the environments where they’re located — the NAACP hosted a summit Dec. 12-13 with the goal of addressing growing environmental justice concerns and calling for greater transparency from policymakers and technology companies. 

Under the theme “Stop Dirty Data,” the two-day conference featured conversations from NAACP leaders, partners and advocates exploring the effects data centers have on surrounding communities and what needs to be done to mitigate any further harm to people and access to resources. 

“We recognize … these AI data centers, that are hyper-scaled and are showing up in our communities, are nothing new when it comes to where they’re placing them and citing pollution,” said Abre’ Conner, director of the NAACP’s Center for Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ). 

“There are still some people who are not connecting their ChatGPT requests or the AI mode that shows up with Google to actually being an infrastructure that lives in a community.” 

The excess amount of water needed to cool down these centers’ servers, the large amount of energy needed to power them, and the negative health impacts caused by increased carbon emissions and the noise pollution brought by the computers’ never-ending humming are some of the environmental concerns surrounding the increase in AI usage and the expansion of data centers worldwide. 

As environmental incentives are continuously being rolled back by the current presidential administration, the creation of these structures poses more of a threat to communities and sustainability across the nation. While leaders and technology giants in the United States strive to dominate the AI market, such a desire endangers the possibility of a greener Earth. 

“Tech executives cannot claim that this is climate innovation and the use of renewable resources while building infrastructure that locks us all into fossil fuel dependence … drains public water systems, and [closes] frontline communities [is] not collateral damage,” said Amon Alex, ECJ chair for the NAACP’s Corpus Christi branch, during one of the summit’s sessions. 

Environmental risks 

According to Data Center Map, there are currently 4,296 data centers in the United States, and almost a third are located in three states: Virginia with 668, Texas with 429, and California with 326.

Virginia has the highest concentration of data centers in the world. Its flat terrain; proximity to a reliable water supply; by-right ordinances that don’t require special permits for developments; and the fact that data centers are exempt from the state’s sales and use tax make Northern Virginia an attractive location for technology companies and these facilities. 

The servers move an estimated 70% of the world’s internet traffic.

Such a high concentration of buildings that consume such substantial amounts of energy can likely threaten the quality of air in the region and negatively affect residents’ health. But Karen Campblin, the ECJ chair for the NAACP’s Virginia branch, said the state’s air monitoring system is skeletal. 

Without efficient technology or opportunities for cumulative assessments, there isn’t enough data to show how toxic these facilities and the greenhouse gases they emit are affecting the public. 

“There’s little protection for the communities to be able to have really intentional public engagement,” Campblin noted during the summit. 

She also criticized the lack of transparency with the public, stating that residents don’t know where the water the data centers consume, especially in coastal Newport News, is being released. Inability to access this information can be the result of non-disclosure agreements between localities and those running the data centers — something that Campblin said is common practice. 

“So it’s very hard for our communities to really find out: what’s happening, what are the impacts, and how it’s impacting their families, their kids and themselves,” she continued. 

People in states like Texas already suffer greatly from the impacts of fossil fuel emissions due to the presence of refineries and petrochemical facilities, which may be worsened by the growing number of data centers in the state. While experts cannot directly link cancer rates to the state’s refining and chemistry industries, different studies have found that communities in closer proximity to toxin-heavy sites and pollutant facilities have higher cancer rates than those farther away. 

A study from the Texas Department of State Health Services found that people living in Harris County, where a Superfund site is located, experience higher-than-expected rates of cervix uteri cancer, leukemia, lung and bronchus cancer and lymphoma. Another study that analyzed Corpus Christi’s Refinery Row found that people living closer to the 10-mile strip of petrochemical facilities experience higher rates of asthma, birth defects and cancers of the male rectum, bladder, kidney and liver. 

“AI accelerates emissions at a moment when our region in Corpus Christi, [and] across the globe, is already vulnerable to extreme heat, to stronger hurricanes on our coasts, flooding and drought,” Alex said. “They want us to believe that these projects are inevitable, but we know that’s a lie.”

This story, previously published in the Washington Informer, has been edited for length.