The announcement was sudden, and at an awkward time. 3:00pm on a Friday, with very little advance notice. Honestly, how many people do you think would attend? When the topic of the meeting will impact the entire community for years to come…it was standing room only.
The Planning Committee of the Ravenna City Council had to schedule this meeting hurriedly to address the possibility of a Data Center being built at the North Chestnut Commerce Center. They had to schedule it at a time when the entire committee could be there, hence 3:00pm on Friday.
Ethel arrived at 2:30, sure there would be a parking problem if she waited too long. While waiting, conversations were flying. People were there from Shalersville, Warren, Ravenna, Windham, and even people out of state. One concerned citizen in the audience, familiar with Data Centers from the one proposed in Shalersville, worries about the location, electricity usage, water and noise pollution, and fire hazards. There is no regulation regarding fire hazards specific to problems with the large batteries that will be in use. Firefighters have little to no training on ways to fight those particular fires. Other citizens are concerned about the rise in ambient temperatures.
Carmen Laudato, Council at Large, started the meeting, beginning precisely at 3:00. She explained that she had heard about the 200 or so data centers being proposed and/or already built in the state and became alarmed at the likeliness of increased pollution, noise pollution, and lack of permanent jobs in the community. Committee person Amy Michael brought to her attention that the city of Tallmadge is trying to block one in their community. They thought that would be good for Ravenna, too. At least slow down progress so it can be studied, analyzed and (if) implemented, done in a safe manner.
Ms. Michaels is looking at the procedure in Tallmadge noting that a temporary ban gives them time to get ahead of the development. Be proactive, not reactive to it. Committee Member Christina West added that they want to be able to make an informed choice and pause it at least until they can get enough information to do it right, as there will be no second chances.
Concerns of the committee include:
• Nothing is more valuable than the environment
• Study why communities in the state have banned Data Centers
• Noise Pollution
• Water pollution
• Not enough water to cool
Councilperson Michaels shared that currently there is not enough capacity in the Ravenna treatment plant to service this and the community. Currently Ravenna has a Class 3 water treatment facility, meaning that they process under 5 million gallons of water daily. This means they can utilize a reduced staff, under 20 hours a week, which saves on water bills. The added needs of this Data Center would necessitate a Class 4 facility. Which means added staff, which means added cost on the monthly water bills. Would the water treatment plant be able to handle the added demand and still be able to make our drinking water safe?
More concerns include:
• Electricity use-who pays for necessary upgrades to the grid
• Noise Pollution
• Economic Trade Off. What’s in it for the community? Jobs? Temporary (construction) vs Permanent?
• Location: sound carries, especially low frequency sound. What kind of damage will that do to residents. This location is very near University Hospital, Woodlands Assisted Living, Ravenna City High School, and many neighborhoods.
Other members of the city council added their concerns:
• Rob Kairis, Council President remarked that the land use and actions will be tied to the study process (if passed) to make a well-thought out plan. They propose a temporary moratorium that will allow a plan to make it as safe as possible.
• Tyler Morovich, Ward 2, remarked that Data Centers do allow for a greater use of computers. This causes a great deal of heat to be involved. He is concerned for the impact on wildlife, so many unknowns at this stage.
• Tim Calfee Ward 4 cautions for the need for more information and to proceed very carefully.
• Paul Moskin, Ward 1 cites homeowners concerns, effect on businesses, proximity to hospital/nursing home/high school. Decibel rating within area radiating to neighboring areas.
• Ms Laudato also brings up negative impact on property value
• Ms Michaels sees no economic value for the community, usually only needs 2-3 people to run them.
Carmen’s daughter, Allison Laudato who is an Aerospace Engineer, shared a slide show. She works with air foils that go in jet engines. As Data Centers are a new concern, she wanted to back up and give an objective overview. Her slide show can be viewed on the live stream of the meeting, @ravennacitycouncil2684. One fact that sticks out in Ethel’s mind, will require the electricity to power 1000s of homes! Double needs of transformers…guess who will be paying. If you watch the YouTube video, Allison begins at about 21 minutes.
The Data Centers
• tap into the grid
• run 24/7, use turbine engines as back up, what kind of gas will they use
• has constant fuel consumption
• Noise-fans on top, noise can be mitigated but not eliminated
• The quality of air impacted even a mile out! People in area have sickened…
Following Allison’s presentation, the committee opened up the meeting for community input.
The first speaker was Denise, who certainly did her homework! Sharing her research, she found:
• Only found two data centers in the country with positive impact
• Promise of jobs are short term, and usually bring in own companies employees. They are not usually from the community
• Increased utilities, forcing upgrades, resulting in increased energy bills
• The data center gets its own special rate
• Energy demands prolong use of fossil fuel
• Water Discharge: OH EPA allows data center to release untreated, uncooled water, including PFAS
• Noise pollution can exceed 90 decibels, causing hearing loss
• Property value has a 10% to 15% decline
• Life Span 10-15 years, leaving community with large, obsolete building
• Amazon agreed to pay 25 million dollars to class action suit linked to cancer deaths, respiratory illness
• Reduce local tax revenues, shifting burden to property taxes for maintaining public services
• Very little to no benefit to community vs great cost
Ms Laudato added that the water use caused a problem with t urbidity, which affects the ability of the water to be made safe.
At this time, Will Hollingsworth, from Reed Memorial Library, took the microphone. He starts with stating he is not an enemy of technology. He knows how to code, etc, and has actually been in the position to train the very AI that eventually replaced him. That is not his concern, though. His portion of the meeting starts at 37 minutes. He is concise, coming from an area of expertise, and impassioned. He sees the Data Centers as a resource extraction, where the tech companies get the gold and the communities pay the price. This clip has since gone viral on YouTube and Facebook, likely Instagram, too.
He explained that the centers claim to use a closed loop system, ideally filling the tubes once and then filtering and recycling forever. He later explained it to me as being similar to the transmission of a car. But, you do need to flush that at times, and leakage does occur. The closed-loop system could work, but only in a laboratory setting. Actually, the ‘closed loop’ has a secondary loop where the water is taken out of the system for treatment. This is where leakage does occur.
After that factual, impassioned speech, Donald Rankin brought another perspective to the meeting. He is an organist in the area, as well as a sound engineer. The hum from the data centers is known about, but there are sounds that are lower than human capacity to hear, but that still affect them. Prolonged exposure to these low frequency vibrations can lead to anxiety, hearing damage, sleep disorders, cognitive disfunction, and cardiac issues. (May I remind you that the proposed site is across the street from a HOSPITAL! The high school…) These changes are noticeable within one hour of exposure.
Others took the microphone, sharing many of the same concerns. Frank Hairston shared his concern about the effects on water in the community. Rachel brought up that we can’t trust the big corporations, or even the EPA. Sue from Shalersville, shared that any information Shalersville has found will be willingly shared. Even at the end of the community input, two youths (teenage and preteen) added their concerns. What about the animals and wildlife in the area? The children are watching what we do!
Sam Schultz, a member of Conserve Ohio and volunteer for Portage Residents for Responsible Development (available on Facebook), shared that Conserve Ohio is circulating a petition to block data centers greater than 25 megawatts statewide. He collected signatures following the meeting and shared that volunteers are needed to collect signatures. There was a training meeting scheduled at the library on Saturday. If you weren’t able to make it and would want to volunteer for petition training, please follow them on Facebook. 413,000 signatures are needed by July.
To close the meeting, they held a committee vote. It was unanimous to move the moratorium forward. The moratorium is for 12 months, which will give time to legally diminish risk, study safety, and our community’s rights in the matter.
There is a special meeting scheduled for 6:00 April 20 which will include the entire council. The committee will require 5 votes. This meeting was the first step in the process of ‘Saying No’.
