AURORA, Colo. — Aurora City Council is moving to draft regulations for data centers just weeks after rejecting a temporary ban on their construction, as residents continue to raise concerns about water use, noise, and environmental impacts.
The council will vote at its next meeting on banning water-intensive evaporative cooling systems at data centers, pushing facilities toward closed-loop alternatives that recirculate liquids using significantly less water.
Aurora resident Jeffrey McFarland said he remains opposed to data center development in the city.
"There are people like myself who are actively against this in its entirety. We're in a drought."
McFarland raised concerns that closed-loop systems are not without risk.
"A closed system doesn't mean no water. Like it doesn't mean it's not gonna, and it's not gonna never leak."
Aurora resident Timothy Elkins raised similar concerns, asking, "Why is Aurora planning a new data center when we are in such a drought? Is the new center not going to consume water?"
Other proposed regulations are creating division among city leaders, including questions over size-based standards.
"I fail to see why we wouldn't want different standards for different sizes of a data center," Mayor Mike Coffman told council members after some debate over the issue.
Noise is also emerging as a point of concern.
Council member Gianina Horton said she wants to look more closely at the issue.
"To be responsible for the environment of our city, I think this would make sense to do our due diligence — yeah it may be costly and at the same time make sure we're doing our jobs well is my perspective."
Because of the range of issues still under discussion, a final vote on these regulations remains some time away — likely some time in late September or early October, according to City Manager Jason Batchelor.
In the meantime, residents say they plan to keep speaking out.
"I'm hard pressed to find Aurorans who have a genuine stake to gain from this data center," said McFarland.
Viewers also weighed in on the issue. Aurora resident Jonathan wrote:
"The people, our city councils, and our mayors, not to mention state government officials, our judiciary, all need to understand what they are ALLOWING to INVADE the regions where we live."
Another viewer, Tony, wrote:
"Just make sure the data centers pay their own way and do not allow them to cause any increase in the electric and water bills of anyone else."
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