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Chris Barnard is the president of the American Conservation Coalition.
The future of the United States will be shaped not only by what the nation builds, but by where it is built.
Data centers have become an integral part of American life, powering search engines, GPS navigation, health care systems and more. But as companies invest in the infrastructure needed for AI, vicious land-use fights are emerging in communities nationwide. Nearly 3 in 4 Americans oppose hosting a data center in their community. Localized opposition has mobilized to halt projects in data center hot spots.
It need not be this way. What if companies could build data centers on contaminated brownfield and Superfund sites in exchange for cleaning up the land?
These sites, polluted with hazardous waste, sit unaddressed for decades due to the cost and legal uncertainty of redevelopment. More than 1,300 Superfund sites, the most contaminated sites identified by the federal government, remain on the National Priorities List, while an estimated half-million brownfield sites are scattered across the country. The federal government spent more than $1 billion last year cleaning up Superfund sites.
At the same time, billions of private dollars are flowing into new data centers to meet growing demand for AI. This presents an opportunity: Policy should make it easier for data centers to be built on Superfund and brownfield sites, rather than farmland and natural areas. In exchange for the property, the companies could clean up and redevelop the languishing land.
Unfortunately, the research on which sites would be suitable for data center development is sparse. Last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that seeks to fix part of the problem, directing the Environmental Protection Agency to identify contaminated properties that are best suited for reuse by data centers.
But the order alone will not be enough. Congress needs to provide legal certainty for companies looking to build centers and a framework for communities considering whether to let them do so.
Once a site is identified, companies could apply to build a data center campus there, committing to clean up the land to applicable standards. The project would then undergo expedited environmental review.
Companies that voluntarily remediate contaminated sites must also receive Good Samaritan liability protections, modeled after protections already used for abandoned mine cleanups, so they are not held responsible for pollution they did not create. This would reduce the legal risk associated with redeveloping Superfund sites, which is one of the primary reasons companies avoid them today.
Rather than building on farmland or in natural areas, hyperscalers should build in places that are already abandoned. These sites are often well positioned for redevelopment due to their industrial zoning, transportation access and utility infrastructure. If such a legal framework were to exist, states and communities could then decide how to further attract companies to their area, if they so choose, through financial or other regulatory incentives.
This framework would not solve every community concern — opponents may still worry that data centers will use too much water or drive up energy costs. Still, it would be the kind of creative win-win policy the U.S. needs more of.
Over 70 million Americans live within three miles of Superfund sites, leaving many communities exposed to health risks. Encouraging data centers to clean them up would protect communities, in addition to creating local economic benefits such as jobs and increased tax revenue. Rather than remaining long-standing liabilities, brownfield and Superfund sites could become places of investment and renewal — if policymakers encourage data centers to lead the charge.
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The only way I could see it happening is if they just hired migrant workers to do it haphazardly without ppe and then have them deported as soon as they started showing signs of cancer.
Except it’s not usually contamination like you would see in a movie with ominous barrels covered in hazmat stickers. Sometimes it’s an old oil or petrol tank underground that needs to be removed, but the physical part of that removal is not the end of it.
The type of contamination at these sites normally requires long extensive mitigation and monitoring to ensure the that the source is not still leaching and that the levels of material are naturally dissipating at the expected rate assuming the source was found.
Oh, I wouldn’t expect them to actually clean the mess up to meet any kind of standard. I imagine they would commit the minimum amount of resources to make it appear they’ve done anything at all, and then have Trump’s epa rubber stamp it.
The Superfund nearest to me is 40 square miles of giant white dunes made up of a sand like material of zinc and lead. They’ve been throwing tens of millions of dollars at the clean up process every year and it’s still nowhere close to being finished.
Aaaah yeah fair enough. My brain immediately took the perspective of “what’s the right way to handle this”. I admittedly didn’t take into account the obvious fact that our regulatory bodies are all a facade now.
But yeah, you get it. It’s a massive undertaking that even when operating correctly intends to limit exposure more than clean it up. So many of the sites I’m familiar with are decades old and the only recourse they have is to make sure a school or daycare isn’t developed on top of it.
Unfortunately the emphasis to do this came from the trump administration itself, so I imagine they have the regulatory bodies on board already.
Yeah, the site I mentioned earlier originates from the early 1900s. The town nearest to it had a huge problem with lead and zinc levels in the child population because they would actually go out and sled on the dunes.
The town was only recently unincorporated in 2013, and that only happened because in 2008 a tornado picked up a ton of material from the dunes and basically dumped it on the town.
Holy crap! That’s so bad…
The industry of that time period is always going to be a source of health issues going forward. The damage from that time still can’t be realistically measured I don’t think.
Yep, it operated from 1900 to the late 60s and supplied the majority of the lead and zinc used in both world wars. So I can’t imagine how much direct harm can be attributed to the place.