Gage County Planning and Zoning Commission recommends 18-month moratorium on data centers

It was 10 o’clock Tuesday night, and the district courtroom in Beatrice was still filled with expectant Gage County residents.

After four hours of hearings, their patience paid off. The Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously voted in favor of an 18-month moratorium on data centers, and the courtroom erupted into applause and cheers.

The moratorium fends off conditional and special use building permits for data centers while Gage County officials consider regulations around their construction. The board’s decision will be sent to the County Board of Supervisors for approval.

Residents filled the courtroom seats and lined up along the walls, spilling over into a listening room just outside. They spent hours raising concerns about the environmental impacts of data centers and the strain one could have on the county’s water and electric supply. This comes as Google reportedly considers a data center in southeast Nebraska that is expected to take up more than three times the power used by the city of Lincoln.

Many residents who have lived in Gage County for much of their lives said the region is already facing a long-term drought, and that rivers that used to overflow multiple times a year now run dry regularly. They worried about projections that data centers can use up to 5 million gallons of water a day and pollute the surrounding environment.

Briana Bartlett of Cortland said some in the community make good faith, well-informed arguments that data centers recycle water and bring jobs to the community. She added that while those who argue in favor of data centers feel regulations would send a message that Gage County is not friendly to businesses, she believes that is a false choice.

“A big employer who uses the water of up to 50,000 people and only employs ten people is not an employer,” Bartlett said. “It’s nothing but an extraction on our county. We are being asked to sacrifice the lifeblood of our local community so that a trillion dollar company can save a fraction of a cent on its margins. We are being asked to drain our aquifer, so that a chatbot can write a poem, or so that a president can make an AI image of himself as Jesus.”

One of the companies included in the proposed project with Google is private energy developer and operator Tenaska, which sent a representative to the meeting. Eli Waring, an associate developer at the company, said that Tenaska is not a data center developer, but a Nebraska-based energy company exploring potential large-scale power customers. He added that those could be data centers.

“We’ve seen other counties stay away from implementing moratoriums, even short term,” Waring said. “You’ve heard about this from the potential signal it can send to the business community that you’re not interested in this type of development.”

Waring was the only person who spoke in opposition to the moratorium.

This legislative session, lawmakers passed LB663 which streamlines reviews of conditional and special use permits and applications for county boards. Many Gage County residents pointed to this law as a reason for the moratorium, arguing that without it, a data center could be pushed through with little time to consider the project.

Brad Wilken, a Firth resident, said any large-scale development like a data center would fundamentally change the community and landscape. He cautioned the board against chasing AI and instead consider future generations and the land they will inherit.

“Agriculture is the backbone of Nebraska,” Wilken said. “Not data.”