What do large-scale data centers mean for the local environment? That’s a question being asked in communities across the nation, including in Champaign County, which is weighing new rules for these facilities. Among those speaking up is University of Illinois environmental science student Bruce Beam, who says the discussion extends far beyond economics and development. He recently addressed a county task force studying the issue.
“The biggest one in there that’s being discussed frequently is the remediation, so what happens to the data center when it inevitably is no longer in use at some point in time. Whether that be near or far down the line, there’s currently nothing in the ordinance that dictates who is responsible for the cleanup and how extensive it is.”
That’s not the only concern. Beam believes the proposed sites could affect wildlife that depend on Central Illinois during migration.
“The issue with is that we’re going to expand the light pollution with the data center, and the Champaign-Urbana area especially is a big hotspot, a crossover hotspot for migrating birds from Canada that fly down to Mexico. I have a professor that’s doing research on whippoorwills. They come down in the end of August, and this is crucial foraging land for them. What the light pollution will do is it will carry miles and miles further than we can see, because the birds have different optical receptors. They might change their course and start to avoid these crucial foraging habitats and not make it down south to the winter where they need for their migration.”
He says some questions researchers are only starting to explore, for example, noise. While noise standards typically focus on what humans can hear, Beam says wildlife may experience those sounds differently.
“Wildlife, especially when we’re talking about birds and prey animals, have vastly different audio receptors than we do. This is largely unstudied because this is a new field, especially the constant hum. Most of the research, at least that I’ve read, about noise pollution is focusing on traffic, which usually dies down in the nighttime and allows animals a chance to go out and forage and mate and do all their normal things. This is largely unstudied how a continuous, permanent change of the ambience might affect certain animals and their behavior.”
For Beam, the debate has become more than an environmental issue. He sees it as a lesson in how science can be applied in public.
“We are trying to bring up enough points of areas that need to be further researched to extend the moratorium so that we can spend more time researching and potentially put in some more safeguards to protect humans, protect the environment. The professors will have the knowledge about the ecology, but how we translate the ecology into action is, I think, best taught through our community members that have been doing it for decades.”
Bruce Beam is a junior studying Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in the University of Illinois College of ACES.