Reporting by Kay Cesinger for ABC 7 Chicago:
Jen Walling is the Chief Executive Officer of the Illinois Environmental Council.
She wrote in Crain’s that “Big Tech” is coming to Illinois and that the state isn’t ready.
“We don’t have the guardrails in place that are going to be necessary to protect our environment, to keep our rates low, to protect our communities and most importantly, protect our water,” Walling said.
She says the Alliance for the Great Lakes has put out a report where they’ve looked at water usage, and some data centers aren’t using much water.
“Some data centers are using up to five million gallons of water a day. These are huge water users, and they can be taking from different sources including Lake Michigan,” she explained.
“We’re also very concerned about air pollution and the energy usage, these are huge energy users,” Walling said.
She also explained the concerns for people living nearby.
“They need to be on with energy all the time. So, all of these facilities have backup diesel generators. And the residents in the [Aurora] community said that they could smell the methane gas that was being burned, the diesel gas that was being burned. And that’s particulate matter, it’s odor, so these communities face real consequences when something happens,” she said.