Residents in rural areas across the United States are opposing new data center projects over concerns about water supplies, energy costs, and farmland loss. In Tazewell County, Illinois, locals successfully blocked a proposed facility after packed council meetings and petitions. The backlash highlights tensions between AI infrastructure growth and agricultural needs.
Michael Deppert, a farmer and president of the Tazewell County Farm Bureau, feared a data center eight miles from his fields would drain a shared aquifer, threatening irrigation for pumpkins, corn, and soybeans. Residents packed city council meetings and gathered petitions, leading developer Western Hospitality Partners to scrap the project. Deppert said, “You just can’t lay down and let everybody do whatever they wish.” Similar resistance has emerged in states from Illinois to West Virginia and Indiana, where opposition includes threats like shots fired at a lawmaker's home with a note reading “no data centers.” In Texas, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller warned against data centers on prime farmland, calling it a threat to food supplies. Data centers are shifting to rural areas for cheap land and tax breaks, with 67 percent of planned facilities in such locations, per Pew Research Center. More than 160 new AI-focused centers have been built in the US over the past three years, a 70 percent increase, according to Bloomberg data. Miquel Vila of Data Center Watch noted, “Rural communities have become a target.” While some farmers like Jamie Walters near DeKalb, Illinois, welcome leases for solar power and data center support, others lament rising land prices that hinder expansion. Water and energy strains worry many: two-fifths of US data centers are in high water-stress areas, and they could consume billions of gallons annually by 2028, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory researchers forecast. In DeKalb, Meta's facility uses up to 1.2 million gallons daily, though averages are lower, Mayor Cohen Barnes said, crediting it for school funding via property taxes.
