Commissioners report back after attending forum on AI data centers

During Monday morning’s regular meeting, the Ozark County Commissioners shared their thoughts on the Missouri Association of Counties meeting on AI data centers, held June 17. 

Western District Layne Nance started the meeting out by telling the small group of local residents in attendance at the commissioner’s meeting that the Ozark County commissioners were definitely in the minority when it came to opposition to having hyperscale AI data centers in their county.

“Not one commissioner who stood up at the meeting and talked was opposed,” said Nance. “But you got to keep in mind that every one of those commissioners who did stand up…they were calling themselves ‘small rural communities’ and [then they’d say] the population of their county seat is 15,000-20,000 [people] or more. And, you know, they’ve got hotels. They’ve got lodging. They’ve got everything they need that the people who come in to do one of these want…

“Now I’m not going to say [it will] never happen in Ozark County, but we don’t have nothing to offer them to want to come here. …’Cause when they come in and  begin building a hyperscale data center, they were saying 1,000 people [would relocate there during construction] and were going to be there for 5 years.”

Jim Britt, Eastern District Commissioner, echoed Nance’s comments and added that he spoke with a woman from one of the large companies that are building these data centers, and she said something that stuck out to him.

“She said when they usually go looking at an area, a city, wherever they were going to put one of these data centers…she said one of the first things they look at is ‘what can they offer us?’” Britt said. “And that stuck out in my head. I thought…we don’t have anything to offer them. They’re looking for infrastructure. They’re looking for things that they need…They’re not looking for that in this area.”

“Our whole county is only 9,000 people,” added Nance. “We don’t have the lodging for them. We don’t have the restaurants to feed the workers…they’re just not looking at areas like [Ozark County.] But on the other hand, they’re going to be all around us before this is over.”

Disappointment in the meeting

The commissioners say they attended the meeting expecting there to be more opposition to the data centers, and they were very surprised there wasn’t.

“We thought this meeting, coming from MAC, this would be a meeting against data centers,” said Nance. “But they’re for it - onboard 100%. The commissioners that did speak up, none of them were opposed. They’re wanting data centers to come to their [counties]. They were asking what they needed to do to get them to come to their [counties].”

He cautioned that several counties around Ozark County are considering looking at approving data centers to be built on their land.

“When your governor is making speeches that [data centers will be built] whether you want it or not and half of your state representatives are on board with it... [It’s hard for some counties to say no].”

The commissioners also said that MAC director Steve Hobbs warned the Missouri counties. “He said ‘If you don’t get on board and don’t let [data centers be built], then they’re going to go to China, and then we’re going to be in trouble,” said Nance. 

Ordinance from 

other counties

In past county meetings, the commissioners and audience had discussed creating an ordinance that would prohibit the construction of hyperscale data centers. 

In a typed statement, Presiding Commissioner Terry Newton, who was absent Monday morning due to a previously scheduled vacation, assured the residents that the commissioners are doing all they can at the moment. “We have our county lawyer currently working on an ordinance that we can adopt. That is pretty much the extent of what we can do at this moment.”

During Monday’s meeting, the commissioners and Ozark County Clerk Brian Wise spoke about one of the Missouri counties that recently instituted an ordinance in an attempt to slow down the construction of a data center.

“If I were coming into a county that has this ordinance, and I had an unending amount of money, [this ordinance] just basically gives you a ‘This is how you do it. This is how you’re going to be able to get through this,’” said Wise. “It’s like a road map how to do it. It seemed odd to me…Is MAC for it?”

The commissioners told him the association was in favor of data centers.

“The lawyer that wrote that ordinance is literally MAC’s lawyer,” said Wise. “That’s why it’s a road map. So I’ll be honest with you, I would take that ordinance and burn it.”

“Unless you got planning and zoning there is basically nothing you can do,” said Ozark County resident John Turner. “They can keep them out of Taney County if they wanted to. They’ve got too many people. They’ve got planning and zoning. Christian County, Greene County and some other counties, they can fight it.”

“Do any of you in this room want planning and zoning?” asked Nance.

“I don’t think anybody does,” Turner answered.

Reactions of other 

commissioners

Nance said that many commissioners wanted the data centers in their county because “the revenue is too good. But I don’t know where the revenue is actually coming from,” he said.

“Are there sales tax coming out of one of these?” asked Turner.

Wise confirmed that there is no sales tax associated with the data centers.

“Well if there’s no sales tax and only property tax, then 86% of it would go to the schools,” said Turner.

“It’s not much [money],” said Wise. “It’s just a commercial building.

“What a lot of [counties are] banking on is that [it takes] 5 years to build that thing and those 600-1,000 people working there,” added Nance. “That’s their home for the next five years.”

“But once it’s built, they leave,” said Turner.

“And that will be empty infrastructure,” added Wise.

In Newton’s typed statement, he focused on Montgomery County, which recently announced a $10 billion dollar deal with Google. “But they also recently spent several million dollars upgrading their infrastructure, something we can’t do.”

However, money doesn’t seem to be a roadblock to most of the large companies that are building the hyperscale data centers.

“One commissioner said Amazon came to him [hoping to build a data center in their county], and he said [the county] really didn’t want it,” Nance told the meeting attendees. “Then Amazon said, ‘Well, what do you need?’ He said we were just being kind of a smart*** about it, but we said we’d like to have a hospital here.

“Amazon said ‘we’ll get started building you a hospital.’ That’s the kind of money that’s behind this,” Nance said. 

Britt said most of the commissioners said there was very little opposition from residents inside their counties. In fact, those commissioners said more of their residents wanted the data centers than not.

“There was one county [commissioner] especially, from a smaller county, that stood up and he told how many hundreds of thousands of dollars the county spent making improvements trying to get a data center,” said Nance. “It was a county with a population of around 4,000 people, and he said ‘they won’t even look at us.’”

Nance also said a representative from Google spoke at the meeting. “She said [counties are] talking about millions of dollars and people think that’s a lot of money. She said they bypassed millions a long time ago. When it comes to data centers, they were talking trillions. She said money is not an option.”

Even the few county commissioners who came to the meeting with serious questions and were opposed at first, left the meeting saying they would be on board with a center coming to their county, the commissioners said.

“I thought there would be people standing up and being blunt…saying ‘We don’t want this’.” Nance said. “There wasn’t one person who did that from any county.”

Are surrounding counties 

considering data centers?

Though commissioners are fairly certain Ozark County will not see a data center in the near future, that can’t be said for surrounding Howell and Douglas counties. 

Nance says both counties are considering leaning in favor of construction of data centers, though neither has been seriously approached yet.

“I don’t see it happening in Ava,” said Nance. “The only thing Douglas County has is one of the big transmission power lines that runs through the county, close to Ava…[the companies] would have to build a substation.”

Nance once again stressed that most of the counties that were being considered had populations much larger than Ozark County with most of the populations of their county seats being larger than 15,000. 

Ozark County’s estimated population is a little more than 9,200 with Gainesville’s population near 700. Douglas County has a population of a little more than 12,400 with Ava’s population hovering at 3,000.

(The Ava City Council was scheduled to hear a second reading of a proposed moratorium prohibiting on data centers within city limits Tuesday evening. Results of that meeting were not available at presstime.)

Other concerns

“Water usage was a huge fear in the beginning,” said Britt. “Probably because it’s something that people can get ahold of and put fear out there…They’re not using the amount of water that [some have said they would]. 

“People think that that’s going to [drain the water table], but it’s not.”

“The new plants are probably better than what they started with,” said Ozark County resident Randy Riffey. “They don’t use that much water anymore.”

The commissioners also said they were told the sound pollution would not be as bad as previously stated.

However, resident Wren Haffner said that most of the noise being produced by the centers are not usually audible to human hearing. “I think as far as I understand, it’s infrasound which is on a decibel that animals can feel and hear, and (we can’t).” 

Though the commissioners had no answers to that statement, Nance said there were a few things said at the meeting about the decibels and the different types of sound. However, the speakers said the sound “didn’t affect us much.”

“But it affects the [body’s] systems, and it affects the animals, but we don’t register it. So it’s kind of dangerous,” said Haffner.

The commissioners also told the residents to contact their representatives and senators, especially State Rep. Matthew Overcast and State Senator Brad Hudson. 

Commissioners said Rep. Overcast has offered to come and bring another legislator to speak about the hyperscale data centers in any forum residents wish. However, they are not getting many answers from Sen. Hudson, even after he spoke with them in the commissioners’ office.

The commissioners say they told him all they wanted was for him to come when Rep. Overcast comes to speak, and he told them he “wasn’t comfortable with that.” After they were able to convince him to make an appearance, they say he told them that he would “have no answers involving data centers.”

“Basically, he’s looking me in the face and saying he doesn’t want to talk about it,” said Nance. “He’s really dodging the issue. If I were people in the county, I would light up his dang phone and his email.”

Conclusion?

“My gut feeling is - I’m not going to say never - but I don’t see them building one in Ozark County in my lifetime,” said Nance. “And I hope to live at least another 30 years. We don’t have anything in this county that’s even close to what they need to consider it.”

Britt agreed. “There are a number of areas [where counties] are actually wanting them and are getting turned down. A place that doesn’t want them? I just don’t see it happening. Before the meeting I was skeptical that we were getting [a data center]. As soon as we left I was even more skeptical. They’re not looking at this area.”