Massachusetts is on track to get its first hyperscale data center, a massive facility designed to support everything from social media apps and uploaded photos to websites used by major corporations and government agencies. But 25 Investigates found growing concerns about how these centers could impact residents — including their utility bills.
Living next to an existing data center “isn’t easy,” Lowell resident Jake Fortes told Boston 25’s Kerry Kavanaugh as he walked through the city’s Sacred Heart neighborhood. “It’s constant sleepless nights because of the noise.” He added, “It has been nonstop noise, construction. Pollution.”
Fortes says he was born and raised in his Iowa Street home. And industry was always in his backyard. For decades it was a pasta factory. It was briefly a recycling center. Markley moved in about a decade ago…