Erin Brockovich, the environmental activist who secured a $333 million groundwater settlement for a California town, has turned her attention to the rapid expansion of AI data centres across the United States. After receiving a surge of emails in the spring from a small Pennsylvania county worried about a new data‑centre development, she launched a digital map that now records complaints from every state and dozens of countries.
The map, which tallies more than 9,200 complaints, links them to 112 operating data centres, 143 under construction and 128 proposed. Texas leads with the highest number of complaints, followed by Ohio and Virginia, all out of a national total of over 4,000 facilities. Residents cite rising water and electricity bills, increased property taxes, and changes to zoning laws that may involve eminent domain to lay transmission lines.
Brockovich says the issue is bipartisan and could influence the upcoming mid‑term elections. She notes that more than 500 moratoriums on new data centres have been enacted, with New York Governor Kathy Hochul declaring one, yet many local councils face multimillion‑dollar lawsuits from tech firms that threaten to derail their efforts.
She stresses that she is not opposed to AI itself, but is alarmed by the speed at which companies—ranging from OpenAI to Meta, Google and SpaceX—are building massive, energy‑intensive operations, often in drought‑restricted areas and powered by natural gas rather than renewable sources. The phenomenon has been likened to the dot‑com boom, raising fears of a potential bust.
Brockovich’s goal is to prompt companies and governments to evaluate the true environmental impact of data centres before proceeding. She argues that the issue is now “bringing climate change to life” for ordinary citizens, making the stakes high enough that data centres could become a unifying force in the fight against global warming.
