Illinois officials face data center moratorium push as sixth grader says, 'We need our water'

Rural opposition to massive data centers is growing, and Illinois is one of the latest places where that fight is playing out.

This spring in Champaign County, a packed county board meeting turned into a call from residents for a pause before new facilities are allowed to draw on local land, electricity, and water.

What happened?

The Mahomet Aquifer, the region's main water source, was at the center of the East Central Illinois dispute over large-scale data centers. MPR News reported that more than 100 people attended the meeting with signs reading "Protect Our Water" and "Approve the Moratorium," reflecting fears about what new development could mean for the aquifer.

Among those who addressed the county board was sixth grader Samuel Tomory, who argued that protecting the aquifer mattered more than expanding artificial intelligence. 

"We need the water from our aquifer, but we do not need AI," he said, per MPR. "We can just have the intelligence ourselves. We don't need the AI as we need our water."

The county board unanimously approved a one-year moratorium in April. The pause gives a newly formed task force time to develop land-use rules for undeveloped areas.

According to Pew Research cited by MPR, data center growth in the Midwest may rise by 64%, and about 2 in 3 planned U.S. sites are in rural areas.

Why does it matter?

In many places, the debate over data centers has become a sharp battle uniting people across political lines. Concerns about the huge amounts of electricity and water these facilities can consume, along with the noise and landscape changes they can bring, have fueled bitter fights in places including Sangamon County, Illinois, and Festus, Missouri, and even efforts to remove local leaders.

AI is deeply tied to this issue because it relies on energy-intensive data centers to train models, store data, and run digital services. While AI can optimize clean energy systems, improve grid planning, and boost efficiency, its rapid expansion can also strain power supplies; increase water use for cooling; raise utility costs; and create misuse risks, security concerns, and unintended social impacts.

Those pressures can fall on everyday households. "I don't think really anybody foresaw how much of a popular backlash there would be against data centers," University of California, San Francisco law professor Dave Owen told MPR.

The central concern is that communities could bear environmental and utility burdens while receiving fewer local benefits than promised.

What's being done?

MPR said local governments have used moratoriums to buy time. Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, put an 18-month pause in place in April; Huron County, Michigan, enacted a three-year moratorium in May; and Hill County, Texas, approved a May moratorium that may be the first of its kind in the state.

States are beginning to act as well. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said he would halt new data center tax incentives July 1 after lawmakers failed to act, while Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine put a data center tax break on hold as officials studied its effects. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, states are rethinking incentives that once attracted these developments.

The most immediate tools remain local: hearings, zoning proposals, questions about how much water and electricity a project would require, and transparency before permits or tax breaks are approved.

As Kate Stoll of the American Association for the Advancement of Science noted, some counties are trying to "shore up their data center-specific policies in this time of rapid growth."

"They were trying to be deliberative and take their time, and in the end, they got the externalities without the benefits," Stoll said.

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