[Ed note: My Southborough accepts signed letters to the editor submitted by Southborough residents. Letters may be emailed to mysouthborough@gmail.com.
The following letter is from Peter Kahn.]
To the Editor:
Imagine a warehouse the size of a football field, filled wall to wall with containers, each packed tight with computers. They generate enormous heat requiring industrial cooling consuming electricity and water. Water leaves the system full of algaecides, biocides, and corrosion inhibitors ensuring lower costs for the operator and leaving a legacy which we pay for with our lives and our town budget. 99.999% reliability and controlling operation costs act as chief drivers for the firm running this datacenter.
With downtime unacceptable, diesel and gas turbine backup systems sit on site as well. Far from only used during a power outage, these run whenever it makes financial sense to do so. If electricity prices rise in midday, those gas turbines spin up with the noise and air pollution as our cost. The operating firm makes money and we face health risks. This isn’t a clean tech company, this is heavy-industry supporting tech companies.
I started in the tech sector in 1995 and have seen many boom and bust cycles. Over and over again the bubble pops and businesses fail. When datacenters fail, communities find that they pick up cleanup costs. When we seek legal redress we may find a shell company, or an army of lawyers who bury the town in discovery. Stopping this before they break ground remains our only point of strength.
There’s nothing hypothetical about these risks. They have been harming communities for decades.
Brittany Heights – Chandler, Arizona: When a data center moved in late 2014, residents began hearing a constant humming. They complained. They petitioned. They organized. After a decade-long fight, the hum remains. What is done cannot be magically undone.
Memphis: In 2024 xAI announced a data center and built it in 122 days. The turbines started running prior to permits being filed. Before anyone could ask questions, the system was operational. By the time we raise our voices, they’ve already won.
Boardman, Oregon: A town of 4,000 people, Boardman saw data centers starting in 2011. By 2022, the county declared a public health emergency over drinking water. A survey of 70 wells found 68 violated the federal nitrate limit. Of 30 homes visited, 25 residents recently had miscarriages and six lost a kidney. Amazon denied wrongdoing, paid out $20.5 million to settle with residents, and the wells remain contaminated.
Data Centers promise good jobs and tax revenue. Their track record tells a different story: rules bent or ignored, communities poisoned, and cleanup costs left for us. This is our home, not their trash dump.
Say no to data centers. They are bad for us and bad for the town.
Peter Kahn
43 Highland St
I agree 100% Peter! They are hiding many bad issues these Data Centers cause! But all of them are occurring and documented throughout the country! We even have another select board member who highly endorses these places! He even proposed only a 50 foot buffer from residential areas! But where he resides it could never happen there! Time for folks to wake up and start to realize the path our town officials are leading the town down! Enough is enough time for a better path!
Outstanding summation of the key facts and corresponding concerns about data centers! Thanks for sharing. Consistent with the feedback I’ve heard from my sister-in-law who lives in Virginia, not far from a community which has been decimated by the rapid infiltration of massive data centers – many that are much larger than a football field. We cannot be hoodwinked into thinking the ‘benefits’ that these developers are suggesting come anywhere close to offsetting the harm and suffering caused by their well-documented drawbacks. We must be united and vigilant on this position to keep them out of our community. And, for the record, I am typically right leaning on topics related to regulation of businesses, so this position is opposed to my own fairly well-established position of advocacy for less government intervention and oversight of businesses.
I may have missed it, but is there talk of one being built in town?
April Town Meeting added data center as a potential use limiting to 50,000 sq feet in the Industrial Park Zone.
Given that data center operators use a combination many lawyers + AI agents to drive projects quickly through the red tape, we could find ourselves facing the consequences of one of these before we had a chance to react.
So, I’m trying to educate and get us ready. Facing off against a 20 or 100 billion dollar corporation hiding behind a shell corporation is not something our town, or any town can handle.
Sayra
No, at least according to 1 source, there are no AI data centers being built in New England.
https://ai-data-centers-map.vercel.app/
The reality is that all of New England has relatively high cost electricity and limited access to natural gas (for back up power). These are 2 very negative factors in a decision to locate a facility.
Right now, it looks like most of the activity is located in Texas and Louisiana where there is abundant natural gas which can be used. They will win the race to tax these facilities (which are worth $billions vs for example the Southborough facility which is assessed at about $33 million)
This is frankly a tempest in a teapot. The odds of an AI data center being located in Southborough are worse than my winning the lottery and I don’t buy tickets. My only point is that if you want to get worked up about banning something have the decency to say that we want the residents to pay the taxes that the facility might otherwise pay.
According to local news sources (which I found via a quick internet search), there are dozens of data centers in Massachusetts, but only one massive so-called “hyperscale” project, located in Lowell. The Lowell project has generated press and opposition, see e.g. “Opposition to data centers grows in Mass. cities and towns.” wbur.org (April 06, 2026).
The author forgets that we do have a data center in town. This facility has been operating for years and contributes nearly $500,000 in taxes to our coffers. That is nearly 1% of all the property taxes collected in the town, from a single facility!
We can say no to Data Centers but the corollary is that you need to be ready to pay more in property taxes for the services we seem to want. These taxes fall heavily on a portion of our senior population.
If you are going advocate against commercial development then it is incumbent on the advocate to clearly identify who is going to pay the price.
As I covered from the recent Town Meeting, Planning Board member Marnie Hoolahan explained that the data center you refer to is an old school one, very different from the new AI Data Centers cropping up. Describing that and the Planning Board’s position to take a catious approach for new centers, she stated:
Readers can learn more about the recently passed zoning law here (and the debate that took place before the vote here).
I don’t think property taxes vs data centers is a solid argument. The Costco project will abate property taxes without the serious consequences.
If our air and water become polluted then taxes will go up as home values drop. I don’t think any of us wants to face that situation.
Mr. Hamilton,
Can you please explain what you mean by “these taxes fall heavily on a portion of our senior population”?
I have no doubt that property tax increases have a painful impact on the budget of many households in Southborough. I can attest to the significant burden of property tax jumps on single-parent homeowner budgets, as well to those who earn public service salaries, for example. I am wondering if there is something fundamentally worse about retiree property taxes than those of other households with limited means.
It is not my intention to question the validity of your statement about senior citizens. I am wondering, in fact, if more populations are burdened to a similar degree.