WAKULLA COUNTY, FL — Every Wakulla County commissioner voted to ban data centers during a Monday night meeting.
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About a dozen residents spoke ahead of the vote, raising concerns about water consumption, effects on local waterways, noise, and potential impacts on local fisheries and oyster farms.
Patricia Dyszer, a Wakulla County resident, said she was pleased with the outcome.
"I am like happy that the citizens of Wakulla County — me included — that the board has listened to us and said no data centers. So, I'm really happy about that to protect our water environment, and just everybody's happy today about that,” said Dyszer.
A data center is a building full of servers and networking equipment that runs cloud services, websites, and AI systems. According to research done by the University of Michigan, a single data center can consume power equal to that of a small town. Most facilities use over 10 million gallons of water a year.
Neighbor Hunter Leavine raised concerns about the long-term effects of water use near the coast.
"If you look at the history of Florida, the more that we've manipulated and moved and used water, the more problems that we found out long term — how it could affect things like salinity and drought, especially with things like this that are so close to the shore and the coastline,” said Leavine.
The commission's decision came despite a legal warning from Assistant County Attorney Evan Rosenthal, who addressed the implications of Senate Bill 180.
“So, a total and permanent ban on data centers is legally problematic due to the existence of SB 180,” explained Rosenthal.
Senate Bill 180 prohibits local governments from adopting ordinances with more restrictive land use or development rules for the county. Commissioners agreed to take that legal risk. Due to the support of the recently passed SB 484, which gives local governments the power to decide what to do about data centers.
County Commissioner Valerie Russell said the ban was necessary given the uncertainty surrounding data centers and the urgency of acting quickly.
"I feel like we don't know enough about how these data centers are going to affect us, and when you wait longer, there's just more things that can come in front of us,” said Russell. “So this way we just shut it down completely. That way we don't have to worry about anything else coming in front of us."
The assistant county administrator said it will take about 2 months to draft the ordinance before public hearings can be held.
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