Iowa data center boom echoes, ominously, hog-lot boom

I spent 45 years as a community organizer at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. For most of that time, I worked with rural Iowans to stand up for family farms, clean air, clean water and a decent quality of life. We fought non-stop for policies that put people before profits and communities before corporations. We battled big banks, factory farms, pipeline companies and corporate ag groups like the Farm Bureau. From my vantage point, the current data center expansion looks and sounds a lot like the early 1990s when giant hog factories started popping up across our state. The similarities are striking. Or, as Yankees catcher Yogi Berra once quipped: 'it's like déjà vu all over again.' Ag industry leaders and their Statehouse allies (like then-Gov. Terry Branstad) were singing the praises of hog factories 35 years ago. They told us these giant, corporate-owned and controlled livestock confinements were the wave of the future — a sign of progress. They told us hog factories would bring economic development and more revenue to our rural communities. Sound familiar? We started with a few hundred factory farms scattered across the state. Today we have more than 15,000 that produce nearly 220 billion pounds (!) of toxic manure each year. Iowa had 159 polluted waterways in 1998. Today we have more than 720, along with 'swimming not recommended' warnings posted at public beaches each summer. Nitrate levels in our drinking water are increasing ,and cancer is becoming more common. Iowa's cancer rates are second-worst in the nation by one measure. This isn't a coincidence. There's a connection between more manure, more nitrates and more cancer. We need a 'Sankofa' analysis. Looking at the past can help us decide how we navigate the future, to avoid the harmful consequences of earlier 'economic development' decisions. This means we need to slow way down on data center development. Iowa already has more than 100 data centers, with more on the way. We're ranked among the top regions globally for large-scale AI data centers. Not nation. World. It seems like Big Tech and its cheerleaders want to make Iowa the Silicon Valley of the Midwest. But at what cost? The technology that data centers use may be new and exciting, but their story has been around a long time: Big corporations make all sorts of rosy promises and then gobble up our finite resources (water, land, energy, etc.), while offloading the costs onto taxpayers and our communities. Analysts are telling us the current expansion far exceeds what we need to live our normal, day-to-day lives and what our resources can sustain. So why the rush to build? Just like 35 years ago when hog factories were emerging, the public is fighting back. Thousands of Iowans from different political backgrounds are signing petitions, talking to their neighbors and turning out at local meetings to stop data center projects. People are saying the current expansion is too much, too fast, too soon. We need to take a pause. That's why 27 counties and six towns have passed data center moratoriums, with more being considered. A recent commentary by LZ Granderson, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, talked about corporate power and how it influences public policy and operates in our society. He wrote: 'What makes me most uneasy (about AI and data centers) is not knowing whether we're looking at disruptive technology that will ultimately help all of society, or a disruption that exists mainly to make the richest people on the planet even more money? I wrestle with that question because our history is peppered with examples of the latter.' Granderson hit the nail on the head. We need to rein in corporate power and not let it run roughshod over our communities and environment. Let's not repeat the mistakes of our recent past. Instead, let's do everything we can to protect the people and places we love. Our lives ― and livelihoods ― depend on it. When it comes to data centers, prudence ― and a statewide moratorium ― will serve us well. Hugh Espey was a community organizer at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement from 1979 to 2024, and was its executive director for 20 of those years. He's retired and lives in Des Moines.