Michiganders in six different locations across the state protested against data centers on Saturday, voicing concerns about their environmental impact, land use, and noise issues.

Data centers have faced immense pushback nationwide as the widespread use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created a need for thousands of them, but companies are quickly finding that many residents don’t want them in their backyard.

In the small town of Mason just outside of Lansing, residents pushed back against a planned data center in the area.

“We love the city of Mason, and we don’t want to see any of the hazards or problems with these data centers, these hyper-scale data centers happen to our town,” said Paula Caltrider, a Haslett resident.

Caltrider further expressed concerns about the environment and noises that could disturb community members.

“And what I’m seeing is they want to put these hyper scale where there’s vibrations. There’s a constant buzzing noise… It contaminates the water, the soil, and the air,” she said.

Polls conducted on data centers have found that Lansing area residents aren’t alone, as a nationwide Quinnipiac survey conducted last year found that 65 percent of Americans would oppose a data center in their community.

While activists in the community have expressed opposition to data centers, Lansing Mayor Andy Schor defended the project, which was cancelled, in large part due to uproar from residents.

“While I understand the concerns, this is the future, and declining to have a data center in Lansing will not stop progress. It will only mean that the data center will go elsewhere and that community will get the benefit,” Schor said.

According to analysis from the Lincoln Institute, a medium-sized data center consumes as much water as a small town and can require hundreds of acres of land.

“The government has thousands and thousands of [acres] where they can put their data centers there, and build their own infrastructure, and stay away from our electricity. Stay away from our water,” Caltrider further said.

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