The Alabama Rivers Alliance, along with other organizations, held an event at Lil Mama’s Event Center today to discuss the possible environmental and economic impacts of a proposed 700-acre data center that could be coming to the Rock Mountain Lakes community.
The event, called the ‘Bessemer Deserves Answers festival’ featured free food, a live DJ and a special screening of a short film about the data center.
Charles Miller, policy director at the Alabama Rivers Alliance, highlighted the potential risks associated with the data center. “The main thing is these data centers, especially one of the size they’re proposing here, consume enormous amounts of electricity and water. They can cause all kinds of geologic issues. When you withdraw that much water, you alter the landscape like that, you could wind up with sinkholes,” he said. Miller also voiced concerns about the lack of transparency from the developer, stating, “We haven’t really gotten straight answers from the developer on what that’s going to look like.”…