Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes used an Oct. 14 town hall in Mesa to argue for a moratorium on new data center construction, telling a crowd of more than 250 people that the state has not done enough to shield residents from higher power bills, water strain and noise, the Queen Creek Tribune reported.
Mayes, a Democrat, faces Republican Senate President Warren Petersen in the Nov. 3 election, and data centers have become one of the sharpest disagreements between them.
What Mayes said
Mayes said her office has counted more than 180 data centers operating or planned in Arizona, 110 of them already running. She said a three-year pause on state tax incentives for the facilities, which Gov. Katie Hobbs and lawmakers settled on in June and which began July 1, does not go far enough.
She told the audience that if every planned Phoenix-area data center is built, demand on local water supplies would rise 32%, at a time when Arizona is losing 30% of its Colorado River water. She also said the facilities can reach 94 decibels and cited an Arizona State University study finding they can raise temperatures downwind by up to 4 degrees.
Mayes said some developers have required cities to sign nondisclosure agreements and that she is suing municipalities she did not name over them. She said her office is still studying Proposition 207, the 2006 voter-approved law requiring compensation when land-use rules reduce property values, but that it does not stop her from bringing a nuisance lawsuit against a data center.
Her office is also challenging a proposed 14% APS rate increase.
Most of the audience came from Ahwatukee, where neighbors oppose a data center of about 1 million square feet being built close to homes, according to the Tribune.
Petersen's view
Petersen has said Mayes' approach would lead to eliminating data centers. "If you like your tech and your phone and your computer and the stuff you can use that for, you probably think data centers are important," he said during the candidates' September debate hosted by the Clean Elections Commission.
