LETTERS

TO THE EDITOR

Data centers

To the editor:

Your editorial mentioning data centers reminded me of a recent conversation with my cousin, who lives in Haskell, Texas, who told me about absentee landlords in their county selling property to companies to build data centers.

The small city of approximately 3,059 sits in Haskell County, with a population of 5,400 and 98 miles southwest of Wichita Falls, Texas, and 52 miles north of Abilene, Texas.

She told me that right outside their city, Google is building two data centers along with a solar power farm, battery storage, and 30 micro-nuclear reactors for back up of power.

Texas does not have the most reliable electric grid.

This will take several acres of ground out of agriculture use.

They are concerned as their water levels are low from drought and these data centers are known for both their high use of water to cool them down and high electric use. Google states that their new data centers will use advanced air cooling, which should cut down on some water usage. 

Google’s data centers, along with other data centers, make a constant low-frequency hum that can be heard up to two miles away from the fans and air-cooling units running around the clock to cool down the data centers.

The county has promoted the data centers for construction jobs and other jobs, although only 20 to 50 high-skill positions may be needed to run the data centers.

Not being in a cooler climate doesn’t make any difference to where they are built. Virginia, Texas, and California are the top states with the most data centers.

A moratorium on data centers in Marion County sounds more and more like a good idea after reading about Haskell County, Texas.

Barbara Tajchman
Marion County Lake

Editor’s note: Texas is one of the most heavily wired states in the nation. Haskell County in particular is quite near three major branches of Internet backbone stretching from Dallas-Fort Worth to Denver. Kansas and Marion County in particular are almost devoid of Internet backbone.

In Kansas, the only concentrated Internet access similar to Haskell County’s is along the state’s northern and eastern borders. Most Internet traffic from here is routed to the backbone in Dallas.

Right or wrong, local officials in Haskell also have welcomed the data centers and their up to 40 new high-tech jobs, which are likely to have a multiplier effect improving the local economy.