HOLLY RIDGE — Erin Brockovich launched a website in April 2026 to collect community reports on U.S. data center projects, citing a lack of transparency as the most frequent public concern. The site, brockovichdatacenter.com, features an interactive map showing proposed, under-construction, and operational data centers based on submissions from residents.
Brockovich received nearly 4,000 reports from people in nearly all 50 states within the first month of her call for submissions. "The single most common concern—more than noise, more than water usage, more than rising utility bills—is the one word that keeps appearing in submission after submission: transparency," wrote Brockovich, an environmental activist, in a Substack post.
She emphasized she is not opposed to data centers or artificial intelligence but criticized developers for announcing projects only after securing permits and ignoring community inquiries. "Transparency means notifying residents before decisions are made, not after. It means public hearings with real, complete information about energy consumption, water use, noise levels, and effects on local infrastructure," she wrote. "It means elected officials who answer to their constituents first, not to the corporations seeking tax breaks and zoning variances."
In Holly Ridge, Louisiana, resident Diane Cobb said locals were unaware of Meta’s planned $27 billion Hyperion data center covering 4,000 acres. "Nobody told us anything. They supposedly had a big meeting. The whole community was supposed to come. Nobody knew anything about it. Ever," Cobb said in an interview with New Orleans Public Radio.
Public opposition has surfaced elsewhere. In Box Elder County, Utah, a large crowd attended a meeting about a $100 billion data center project backed by Kevin O’Leary. Officials ended the session by moving to a separate room and unanimously approving the project after a commissioner told attendees to “grow up.”
Supporters highlight economic benefits. Loudoun County, Virginia—home to about 200 data centers—collected $875 million in tax revenue from them in 2024, exceeding its general operations budget by $35 million. U.S. data centers consumed 76 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2018, or 1.9% of national usage. By 2023, consumption had risen to 176 terawatt-hours, or 4.4% of national usage, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A Carnegie Mellon University study estimates data centers could raise average U.S. electricity bills by 8% by 2030, with steeper increases in data-center-dense regions.