The Alliance does not support the buildout of resource intensive data centers in our city or state and we’re glad to see the New Orleans City Council and Mayor Moreno taking the issue of data centers seriously.
The data center boom happening across the country is raising real concerns about energy use, water demand, and community impacts. As we’ve seen with the new Meta data center being built in Richland Parish, corporations like Meta and Entergy stand to make incredible profits from headquartering AI data centers in our region, but we are the ones taking on all the risk and footing the bill.
This latest data center project is being proposed in New Orleans East, a predominantly African American and Vietnamese American community that has long borne the disproportionate impacts of industrial development and environmental harm. This project threatens to perpetuate environmental racism and place additional burdens on the people who live in this community. New Orleans needs to be proactive in preventing developments that will be harmful to our communities.
With a lot of information circulating, it’s important to be clear about what’s actually on the table right now:
We are actively monitoring the developments out of City Hall and look forward to working with residents and elected officials to ensure community concerns remain front and center and are honored.
