RESOURCES: Data Center Issues

Following is an hour excerpted from our November 2025 forum about data centers and water usage (not including the audience Q&A). The first half hour had video recording blips, so we are using event images from Sarah Whiting over the audio before the video kicks in for the last half.

Potential Data Center Sites to Date:

• Apple Valley
• Becker
• Cannon Falls
• Chaska
• Eagan
• Faribault
• Farmington
• Hampton
• Harmony
• Hermantown
• Lakeville
• Monticello
• North Mankato
• Nobles County
• Pine Island
• Rosemount

How to Engage

• CURE, curemn.org
• MCEA, mncenter.org
• Coalition for Responsible Data Centers toolkit
• Joyce Foundation updates on data center developments across the Midwest
• SAVE THE DATE for a February 18 rally at the State Capitol, announced at nodatacenter.com

Action Steps

An audience member at the November forum asked the speakers to offer simple message for community advocates to convey the importance of water conservation.

• Freshwater’s Carrie Jennings suggested asking cities how much water they have and how much they will give away.
• MCEA’s Carly Griffith emphasized the importance of determining who gets to decide on key impacts like water, energy, and materials.
• EOR’s Anabel Sanford expressed the need for humanizing conversations and involving community expertise in design solutions.
• Cathy Johnson, of the Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development, asked people to support the Coalition’s legal fund, which is attempting to set a precedent in Minnesota so that public input is required early in the process of data center development.
• CURE’s Sarah Mooradian encouraged people to contact legislators to express concerns about data center development and the need for stronger regulations, well before they begin to convene in mid-February 2026 to prioritize issues and policies.

One audience member is from Indivisible Twin Cities, which is planning a data center-related phone and email campaign to state representatives. Says Margaret Sullivan, “We want legislators to know, as they gear up for next session, that Minnesotans want pro-people, pro-environment handling of data centers at the tops of their agendas and priorities.”

Other Resources

• North Star Data Center policy toolkit
• An audience member shared information about the Piedmont Environmental Council, which is a robust resource developed after unsustainable transformation by data center development began in the state of Virginia.
• A 9-minute documentary about the impact of proposed data centers in Farmington, and the labor industry, created by an independent documentarian, is here.
• A YouTube series from Business Insider about data centers
• Hermantown update from MPR (November 5)
• TV story on Hermantown community organizing
• MCEA lawsuit in Hermantown, which includes this paragraph:

The Hermantown AUAR doesn’t meet these legal requirements. It doesn’t even describe the proposal as a data center, calling it a “light industrial” development. The study fails to describe basic components of the proposed data center, estimating power and water usage based on a generic light industrial development, not a large data center. And while this environmental study is supposed to analyze ways to mitigate these impacts, the AUAR fails to provide any commitments to reduce the impact of water use, power use, or air, light, and noise pollution on the surrounding community.

• Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light, part of a series about why electric costs are going up: “When a Data Center Comes to Town”