OpenAI data center sparks intense debate at Effingham County meeting

At a heated meeting Saturday, Effingham County residents aired their ongoing concerns about the proposed OpenAI data center and commissioners agreed to look into them.

About 70 people attended the Effingham County Commission’s workshop at the commission chambers in Springfield. Another dozen or so people watched from an overflow room and still others, over 100 at times, watched online.

Almost all the attendees remain opposed to the $20 billion data center project that was announced in July as a fait accompli before residents had the opportunity to weigh in on it. That secretive process left many deeply distrustful of the project and the officials who support it. Planned for the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub in Rincon, the data center would require 3.2 gigawatts of electricity, making it one of the largest single data center campus announcements in the world.

Among the issues residents raised were low frequency noise pollution; EMF (electromagnetic field) radiation emitted by data centers; and fire hazards posed by large battery systems used as backup power.

Commissioner Beth Helmly said the meeting boosted the profile of these issues for her.

“The way I look at it is, is we’re not under a timeline here, as far as I know, to make sure that we can get these things addressed,” she said as the meeting wrapped up. “So it’s not like it has to happen tomorrow. My goal would be to say we do need to look at these things, and we do need to to examine them, and we do need to push back, and we do need to get everything in writing.”