SAN MARCOS, Texas (KXAN) — The San Marcos City Council will consider on Tuesday whether to allow a company the ability to build a data center within its city limits. A few others could also be built around San Marcos, but this is the only one within the city, according to San Marcos Mayor Jane Hughson.
On Sunday, a few dozen people gathered at a community meeting hosted by the Data Center Action Coalition – a group of residents and activists wary of the environmental impacts of data centers.
“I think there are some people here who are concerned because they live near the facilities’ [planned location],” said Bobby Levinski, an environmental attorney who works with the coalition. “Some are concerned about things like noise and air pollution, and I think the broader San Marcos community has a lot of concerns about our overall water use.”
A large data center can use over 500,000 gallons of water a day, the equivalent of over 4,000 people’s water use in a day, according to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“Data centers require a ton of water,” Levinsk said. “They require constant cooling, so the amount of water that they say they’re going to use, they’re going to be using.”
San Marcos Mayor Jane Hughson attended Sunday’s meeting to learn more about the facilities ahead of the Tuesday San Marcos City Council Meeting, where the city will decide whether to change the zoning of a piece of land to allow for the development of a data center.
“The owner of the land has indicated that he is working with a data center that would like to locate there,” she said.
Hughson said she is taking into account how much water is required to keep a data center running. She said the applicant is using a “closed loop system,” which reduces the needed water.
“We need to be concerned about water and future water in Texas,” Hughson said. “So we’ll see how water affects this particular data center and what the requirements are going forward.”