This morning we sent Durham’s City Council and County Commission a letter outlining our position on data center moratoria in our region. You can find it here. Put simply, our position is that some data centers are demonstrably harmful to and extractive from the communities in which they are sited. Others are essential to those communities’ basic functions (operating hospitals, conducting research, and protecting critical records) and to their economic future. Any moratoria considered should distinguish the essential from the harmful.

The Essential

Durham is currently home to an array of “enterprise scale” data centers and has been for quite some time. Facilities like the EPA’s National Computer Center have provided computing services to their organizations for multiple decades and are essential to our life sciences and biotechnology economy’s continued growth. Others both within the City of Durham and in RTP are specifically licensed to serve our hospitals and universities by handling sensetive patient information and student records. These facilites are already integrated into our city and county and serve as critical infrastructure for the community.

The Harmful

While data center infrastructure is essential and fundemental for our community, there is good reason for concern about large and irresponsible developments in Durham. Large or “hyperscale” data centers can consume as much water as a small town and as much energy as 50,000 homes. They can also pollute local water systems and take up massive amounts of space that could be used for more community serving goals. At this scale data centers are harmful by nature and are a poor use of our community’s resources.

Moving Forward

We are grateful for our political leader’s efforts to protect the community and its business from developments that constitute a poor use of our valuable resources. We urge nuance as to the distinction between harmful and essential data centers. As our leaders continue to pursue responsible data center regulation, we recommend looking to other regions like Montgomery County, PA and Dekalb County, GA who are working to build comprehensive policies managing future data center development.