Community Impact of a Data Center
Changing hundreds of acres from residential and agricultural land to industrial zoning could significantly affect the surrounding area, including nearby homes, schools, and rural neighborhoods. Because of the long-term nature of industrial zoning, the decision will shape the future of the community for decades.
The Spring Hill Area is Full of Residential
The area around Spring Hill is not empty farmland, it’s packed with residential communities, neighborhoods and rural homes. There is no place in the area that a data center would not permanently disrupt.
A Data Center in Spring Hill Would Impact Utilities
Power:
Even though it may look like there is plenty of power available because of the large power transmission lines running across the property, there isn’t enough power available for a data center of this size. The power lines will get them started, but they can’t sustain a 313 acre data center. As the data center grows, it could lead to local brown outs before they fully convert to diesel or natural gas generators. Data centers run over two dozen locomotive sized generators, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
Water:
Data centers consume roughly three million gallons of water per day. Data center developers claim they use closed-loop systems requiring minimal water, but “minimal” is relative. Each chiller they use to cool the data center loses water through evaporation, carrying pollutants with it. Water One does not currently have the capacity to supply the data center with the water it needs. This could lead to the data center tapping and depleting the aquafer that many surrounding homes rely on for their water.
Learn more about data center impact on local utilities here
Setting a Precedent for M1 Without Buffers
Data centers need to be constructed in planned locations with significant buffer zones. Buffer zones allow gradual step-downs from heavy industry to light industry, then commercial, then residential. The proposed location does not allow any buffer zone. Three schools are roughly a mile away and the nearest home to the proposed development is only 90 feet away. If we allow this type of development to happen in Spring Hill, it sets a precedent for dropping heavy industry right next to residential in the future and could effectively kill future residential growth of the area.
Tax Abatement
Kansas Senate Bill 98 (SB98), enacted in 2025, establishes a 20-year state and local tax exemption designed to attract large-scale, permanent data center developments to the State of Kansas. The program makes sure that data centers can be built cheaply and any benefit to the state and local communities from tax revenue just isn’t there. The citizens will foot the bill.
Learn more about the Kansas tax abatement for data centers here.
Dirty Data Centers
Data centers may seem benign because they’re large, windowless buildings with few employees. However, data centers are extremely resource heavy. Large data centers, like one that would fit in the proposed location in Spring Hill can consume up to 150 megawatts of energy and up to five million gallons of water per day.
Water and Utility Consumption
Data centers stretch local utilities to their max. When the power company can no longer keep up with demand, data centers often install dozens of generators the size of locomotive engines. Data centers can consume up to 150 megawatts of power per day.
Data centers are also a massive drain on water supplies with some large data centers using up to five million gallons of water per day.
Learn more about a data center’s impact on local utilities here
Data Center Bubble
Technology companies are investing in data centers and AI at a rate that outpaces the railroad boom of the 1850s. According to Forbes, Wall Street is starting to question if companies are over-investing which could lead to a massive data center bubble burst and potential abandonment of faciliites. Not only could a bubble burst, but as history has shown us, technology gets smaller and more powerful over time which may render massive data facilities useless and abandoned leaving local communities holding the bag.