Anyone seen The Lorax? Let’s take this back to a simple childhood concept. Some money hungry company comes in with this great “new idea.” Everything looks stunning and wonderful, just like a brand new Thneed. Just think, a $5 million incentive?! How far down the road do we need to get to realize that a desolate, sad land with depleted resources is coming and realization that we have stripped everything away from the land that we love and children who deserve a far better future than that?

Citizens of Norwalk! By now many of you have heard of the data center being built west of town, called Project West (a.k.a. a unicorn project that landed in our lap.) This project is going to be about a half mile from our house. At first, we thought it wouldn’t be bad, but after doing further research, we have become quite skeptical of the environmental and health concerns that data centers create.

Concerns are being raised regarding the use of forever chemicals (PFAS) that data centers use in their cooling systems, that have been banned for many specific uses because of their carcinogenic properties.
Cancer rates are rising around communities specifically that have data centers. The large amounts of EMF radiation emitted from data centers alone pose a risk to all of us, but mostly to our children as children absorb significantly higher levels than adults. EMFs are now classified by the World Health Organization as a class 2B carcinogen, the same category as lead and engineer exhaust.
Iowa currently is one of the highest cancer leading states. Why? Can research link the data centers popping up all over the state to this?

Data centers also use massive amounts of water, leading to water shortages and highly polluted water.
The amount of electricity used overloads power grids and the spike in both of these usages can raise local electric bills up to 20%. These high consumptions can force infrastructure upgrades, increasing the cost for residents.
Add noise pollution, and reduced property appeal, and we have a recipe for disaster. And to think we are building this right next to “Serenity Woods”…. A wetland restoration easement where the City of Norwalk is supposed to be working closely with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. It’s almost comical, if it weren’t so sad.
The City is telling the community what we want to hear. We are hearing about the $5 million a year in tax money from this project that will benefit all of us. They don’t say how… but we all know government officials tend to promise heavily on the front end and then lack on their follow through.

What environmental and health research has the City of Norwalk posted? This project is being kept a pretty hush-hush matter and it seems like only the city council and the mayor know of this.

It is important that we have a voice in our community. We should voice our opinion on a project like this that could impact our health, especially the health of our children, and our environmental surroundings forever.

Kelsey Porter

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