Hours after a near-two-billion dollar deal was announced to restart a nuclear plant near Cedar Rapids to power a proposed data center, Waterloo joined a growing list of Iowa communities voting to temporarily block data centers.
The Waterloo City Council approved a three-month moratorium on data centers at its meeting last night. Council member David Morrow says the pause will allow council members to properly regulate such projects.
“And three months, I understand, many people wanted it longer than that, but three months was what we could come to agreement on,” Morrow says. “I think you’re going to find the entire council is understanding. We’ve heard you.”
The city council plans to vote to finalize a six-month pause on hyperscale projects at a future meeting. Residents have asked for the measure since learning Waterloo approved an initial agreement with a data center developer on a 12-acre industrial site last December. The agreement included tax breaks and a one-dollar-land-transfer.
Council member Steve Schmitt says the three-month moratorium will allow city leaders to pause before taking any next steps.
“It would just be great if we could get everybody somewhat on the same page, or all kind of operating from the same set of information,” Schmitt says. “I think that would be very beneficial to everybody.”
Dubuque is also moving toward adopting a data center moratorium.
The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday offered NextEra Energy a loan of nearly two-billion dollars to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center in rural Linn County near Palo. Most of the power produced there would be bought by Google Energy, which is working to locate a data center nearby.
(Gavin McGough, Iowa Public Radio)