Fort Meade residents filed a lawsuit against the city over its unanimous approval of a hyperscale data center recently, despite a lot of community protest.
They're suing for negligence, accusing Fort Meade of not following a state-mandated review process. They want a higher court to rule on the city commission's decision.
City officials did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
One of the plaintiffs in the suit is local businessman Michael Bennett. He lives in Polk County — just outside the city limits — with his wife and two kids. The 1,300-acre site for the massive AI facility is about a half-mile from their home.
Bennett is not only suing the city, but he's also passing around a petition to recall all commissioners with eligible seats.
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He spoke with WUSF's Jessica Meszaros about the issue. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Can you share when you first started hearing about this data center being proposed, and how it kind of developed to where you are now, being involved?
Initially, I had heard nothing of it. We got no notification in the mail. Any kind of flyer, public hearing ... I wasn't aware of any of that. It wasn't until I received some phone calls from friends of mine asking me about how I felt about this data center.
And I was kind of behind the 8-ball, so I had to run fast to catch up quickly, if you will. And I learned a lot about it, as far as contacting people, talking about it, looking at other locations, travel different places, look at different data centers, gathered all the information that I could about them, so I could be an informed citizen, basically.
And what are your concerns about living a half-mile from this hyperscale data center?
A couple of things that really kind of set off to me: one, I have a nice home, and I'm fearful that it'll negatively impact the value of the home. It kind of comes from the second part of it: the noise that's generated through a data center.
There's hundreds of generators, and the energy that is needed through a data center is going to require a lot of backup generators. ... It's a lot of noise. And then the low-frequency noise that the acoustical engineer said I would feel. That part there in the proximity of where we live, and it being as flat as it is, I'm fearful that that will drive down the cost of our home and put my wife and I in a difficult situation.
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So, you actually hired an acoustical engineer. Can you tell us, if you're comfortable sharing, how much you spent and why you decided to do that?
Well, to hire the acoustical engineer, it's $5,390, and they do a air, noise, light, sound pollution study. They come out, and they place devices all over your property, and they monitor it 24/7 for a week.
And they study the sky, and they give you a reading of, you know, the night sky of what it is at night and the sound. So, I wanted a baseline reading; that's why I did what I did. I wanted a baseline reading for everything that we have in our property. And if something changes in the future, I'll get a post-reading, as well.
Can you describe for people what it's like on your property right now?
It's very peaceful, especially at night. From about 6:30 p.m. on, the noise ranges about 35 decibels. It's near quiet. There's nothing. I mean, you may hear wildlife off in the distance, and I have deer that come through our property, and we look at them and take our pictures of them, and it's our own little slice of heaven, if you will.
So, you live there with your family, and you're having to think about not just yourself and your wife, but your young children as well, right?
Children are a little bit different, especially children that are kind of susceptible to increased noise or vibrations or anything like that. Children that have, like my oldest son is on the (autism) spectrum as well, and I do fear of how that will negatively affect him and the sensitivity to noise.
I mean, of course, that part is a little bit of speculation, but there is studies that show that exposure to low-frequency noise over extended periods of time can have a negative effect psychologically on people, so it is something that weighs on us.
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