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A July survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that voters overwhelmingly oppose extreme power and water consuming data center construction in their cities, and that has local officials worried about their economic development plans.

“I think part of the problem has been a lack of information and communities just feeling besieged,” observes Irina Raicu, an Internet ethics program director and the co-author of a new study on water availability and data center regulation. “How do data centers compare to certain agricultural uses or with other things that might be more problematic? There are some real trade-offs involved here that are not easy to make.”

Iris Stewart-Frey, co-author of the study, professor and head of the Santa Clara University Water and Climate Justice Lab, and Ethics Center faculty scholar added, "I think the public debate has gotten loud enough that it’s going to be hard to ignore...so hopefully that will push [the thinking about data centers] and develop some of the regulations and policies that are needed at the state and federal level.”

Irina Raicu, director, internet ethics, and Iris Stewart-Frey, professor, environmental studies and sciences, quoted by Western City, a monthly publication provided by the League of California Cities.