Data Centers are buildings housing a large network of computers that perform a variety of services from creative AI to bitcoin mining to cloud storage and computing.

We have many reasons to oppose this development. First, we are concerned about how it may harm us and our families physically. Data Centers are known to produce infrasound pollution, which is documented as harmful to humans and animals. Right now, we have no regulations protecting us from this sort of sound pollution. This isn’t even mentioning concerns regarding air pollution from backup generators or water pollution or light pollution blocking our views of the rural night sky. Second, we are concerned about how this will harm us financially. With infrasound pollution that you can feel as it penetrates buildings, who will buy our homes if we want to move away from this data center? It will likely drive down our property values considerably. Also, we have concerns that the massive amount of energy this data center will consume will spike our energy bills. This data center development will likely require multiples of what the whole city of Rochester uses! Next, we are concerned about all the millions of dollars given away to subsidize these billion or trillion dollar tech companies. It is not right to make hard-working families pick up the tab for these exploitative developers and tech firms. Finally, we decided to live here to live in a rural setting and not an industrial one. This massive industrial development will dramatically change this community forever erasing critically needed farmland during a time of farmland scarcity.

According the City Council’s own website, this project was in the works since late 2023, which was not disclosed until November 2025 after data requests were submitted. A code name (“Project Skyway”) and euphemisms (e.g. “Technology Center” or “Technology Park” as opposed to “Data Center”) were used to cloak the actual nature of this development from robust public scrutiny, which worked until September 2025 when five moms raised the alarm about it. City officials maintained in public meetings that they did not know it was going to be a data center development despite disclosed emails between the developer and city official(s) exposing conversations specifically about developing a data center in Pine Island going back to February 2024.

According to the Pine Island City website: “No one on city council or the planning commission has signed NDAs. Two staff members, our city administrator and deputy city administrator, have signed NDAs.”

What they leave out is the city engineer who is contracted to help assess this data center project also signed an NDA. This was discovered through a local citizen’s data request and not volunteered.