Magpie Messenger Issue 4: Across Turtle Island, Water Protectors are fighting against Data Centers

We've eagerly welcomed AI into our homes and pockets, impressed at its capabilities, but behind every AI-generated image and every swift chatbot reply are colossal, energy-guzzling data centers. What is the true cost of these centers, and who pays the price? 

As you may know by now, Honor the Earth is organizing with the Northern Cheyenne to fight back against a proposed nuclear site, uranium enrichment site, nuclear waste storage, and a massive data center behind these proposed extractive projects. This isn’t isolated to Northern Cheyenne territory. Across Turtle Island, communities are fighting back against tech companies trying to build their fortunes with artificial intelligence. Data centers, which suck up massive amounts of energy and clean water, are the front line target in this new struggle against extractive industry and colonialism.  

We need to be paying attention to the rapid expansion of data centers across our lands, and learning from frontline communities fighting back. This isn’t new. Experimental technologies that rely on extraction are almost always built at the expense of Indigenous, Black, and Brown communities. We pay the price for the convenience of AI while others profit. 

Tribal lands are being targeted because large tech companies don’t believe rural, coal-dependent communities have the resources or leverage to fight back. Today’s crop of exploitative corporations has underestimated the power of our Peoples when we work together.

Data centers have enormous physical footprints and rely on large amounts of clean water to run. They also suck up electricity for massive amounts of air conditioning and other services. By 2026, data centers alone are expected to use 1,050 terawatt-hours of electricity, somewhere between the entire countries of Japan and Russia.

In addition, these projects increase energy costs, produce noise and light pollution, and further the expansion of unnecessary AI tools for surveillance and the military state.

Across Turtle Island, from Wisconsin to New Mexico, Water Protectors are fighting back.

A group of Twiggs County, Georgia residents recently sued the county after officials approved a $2 billion data center despite local opposition. They allege the county ignored its own rules around zoning and failed to get a third-party review of potential data center impacts.

They’ve been joined in their struggle by the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, who lived in the region for thousands of years before the U.S. government forcibly removed them in the 19th century. On top of environmental and economic damage, the proposed data center threatens sacred archeological sites that are important to the Tribe’s history and culture. 

Unlikely alliances are being formed between Water Protectors, wealthy landowners, Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in between. This is because data centers impact us all while only benefiting the corporations they serve. We’re all impacted by the loss of water, dimming of our night skies, and increases in noise pollution. 

According to Data Center Watch, $64 billion in US data center projects have already been blocked or delayed by a growing wave of local, bipartisan opposition. There are now nearly 150 groups across 24 states organizing to block data center construction and expansion.

Communities in Tucson, Arizona, motivated by the announcement that their power bills were about to double, got their council to reject Amazon's planned “Project Blue” AI data center. Planned near San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation and Pascua Yaqui Reservation, the data center would guzzle enough water to supply nearly 4,000 households, and potentially as much power as Tucson's entire residential population. The developer says it’s still moving forward with the project, and locals continue to fight back.

In Pittsylvania County, Virginia, a developer tried to build a data center “MegaCampus” with a gas-fired power plant. The plant, at 3,500 megawatts,  would have been the second largest in the entire country, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. Hundreds of residents from across the political spectrum organized and pushed their county’s board of supervisors to deny the rezoning required for the project. They won that fight in April.

In total, community opposition to data centers have blocked or delayed more than $18 billion in projects across Turtle Island, according to pro-data center publication The Data Center Frontier.

Water is life. We can’t afford to waste it cooling corporate data servers and storage. 

The unchecked expansion of AI and data centers is not inevitable. 

We know that if we fight back against these projects, we can win. Will you join us?

Every bit of support helps this fight. Donate here!