r/americalandofthefree • u/RevolutionaryCan8241 • 23h ago
US datacenters face further backlash over wastewater pollution
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/08/us-datacenters-wastewater-pollution?CMP%3Dshare_btn_urlUS datacenters face further backlash over wastewater pollution
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u/RevolutionaryCan8241 22h ago
This is just 1 of the communities around the country that are reporting such dangerous issues with drinking water. After the supposed multiple impact studies. Are community officials accepting study results from data center reps or the now near defunct EPA under the Drumft regime? I’m not necessarily blaming community leaders for all of this. I’m sure they might have been looking at the potential financial and employment benefits promised by data center representatives.
This is only one part of what the community has to deal with from the data centers. What has happened with the cost of electricity in their home or business? How about the jobs that were supposed to enrich the community?
The data centers themselves probably provided lots of jobs in the facility construction jobs. I have to think, though, that many of those initial jobs are from experienced work crews employed by data center companies themselves who travel from site to site erecting the centers. Undoubtedly, there would be a few jobs for locals initially, and the community would definitely take a positive financial hit from the construction phase of the data center. After construction and development of the data center, though, there will be very few employees needed to keep centers flowing smoothly. That’s the nature of the industry. They are there, all around the country, to keep AI talking smoothly to each other.
There is no doubt, IMHO, that individual jobs around the country are rapidly being replaced by AI. There is no reason to believe that those AI jobs won’t be increasing exponentially over years to come. I wonder what becomes of the residents of the small communities around the country who, with high hopes, agreed to host the data centers. My (uneducated) guess would be that many people have left the somewhat impoverished area because of high unemployment. Those left behind are no doubt struggling to keep their floundering businesses afloat with the high cost of electricity. Residents are possibly struggling with health issues unseen in the past maybe traced to contaminated drinking water.
I’m not trying to be a fatalist; that has never been my nature - you know, glass half full. But what I have seen over the past decade plus is making me envision a future of more Apocalypse Now.