“I live two miles away from a data center. The other night we were around the fire pit with all of our neighbors and someone was saying, 'these data centers, we've got to keep them out.' And I'm like, you realize we live two miles away from one? 'No, we don't.' Yeah, we do. That's what paid for the park, the high school facilities, all of that. They didn't even realize.”
The Prairie Farm Podcast · October 2026
Context
Asked about stories of rural residents harmed by nearby data centers, Inman says she has only heard them secondhand and offers this conversation with neighbors instead. She adds that bad actors exist and local governments need good data to decide.
Transcript
…issue because of water quality. So, you know, when you look at the commitments that data centers are making to invest in infrastructure around water, it would be silly to not take advantage of that to rebuild the nature-based solutions that we need to handle the crisis that we're in in this state.
…data center or like all of a sudden their water pressure just totally, you know, people who live nearby or in a rural area, you know what I mean? Where it's just like, those are all anecdotal. And I don't have any personal evidence that they exist. It could be social media. So I don't know, but.
Yeah. I haven't seen, I mean, I've heard the anecdotal, right? I live two miles away from a data center. Okay. And the other night we were, you know, around the fire pit with all of our neighbors and someone was talking about these data centers, we got to keep them out. And I'm like, you realize we live two miles away from one. No, we don't. Yeah. Yeah, we do. It's the one, you know, on this street and this street. That's what paid for the park, the high school facilities, all of that. They didn't even realize that we lived. And it's on a busy street. You pass it every day, you know. So I think, again, there's bad actors. I'm sure there's, you know, especially if they have to go off grid or the power source is not there and the state or the county didn't do their due diligence. They're running generators, right? It's loud. But, you know, if you, if we're going to allow them in the state, then we need to give the local jurisdictions the right data to make the right decision. And the one thing that I disagree about moratoriums is you're not allowing for the proper studies to happen. Right.
Moratorium is just no data centers ever legally on paper. We've now solidified as a county.
Right. And so you, and that's exactly what it is. And so, but if you, if you're talking to a data, and I think people kind of miss this, right? Because data centers are one thing, but there's a lot of industry that are in the state that use a lot more water than data centers. So that's a slippery…
Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. I think our state should have like a task force team at a state level that is very well paid and very educated. And they just go when counties get approached, they just call on the state task force. Because our county, I live in like the wealthiest county besides Polk…
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