Four candidates for two open seats on the Eagan City Council debated perspectives on local issues at a forum moderated by the League of Women Voters-Dakota County and broadcasted on Eagan Television inside Eagan High School studio.
Eagan constituents will chose two candidates on the Tuesday, Nov. 3, general election that includes incumbent council members, Paul Bakken and Gary Hansen, and candidates Scott Armitage and Jason Narverud.
Here’s what they said about data centers…
During the forum, candidates addressed many issues. One question was: “Eagan was the first city in Minnesota to pass a moratorium on new data center development. As a council member, do you support the moratorium as the right way to study impacts like electricity demand and water use before more data centers are built? When the moratorium expires, what specific standards would you want in place before Eagan allows new data center projects to move forward?”
Narverud said he agrees with the unanimous council vote to issue a one-year moratorium, saying “What you do in that year, I think, it is super important as well. What is your end goal? I think being patient is good, but at some point in time, are you deferring the answer and not actually answering it. I don’t want to become too patient. I want to make sure that we answer the questions. We have data centers here and they have been good neighbors for the most part, I would say. I think what we are talking about is hyperscale data centers, what people read in the news. What happens if they decide to walk away? What happens if there’s a leak? What happens if they want to decommission in a certain way? Those are the kind of details that we need to have those questions answered upfront,” Narverud said.
Bakken said the moratorium allowed the city time to study the data center issues, update city ordinances and protect public health and safety. “Some of those things are water usage, noise, light pollution, and other types of negative externalities that are not compatible with existing established surrounding areas. There is a little bit of frustration here because the city Eagan is currently being sued by a would-be data center, so those of us who are on the council are a little bit restrictive in what we can or cannot say,” Bakken said.
Armitage said during his campaigning and door knocking, residents talk about concerns regarding data centers. “Some of the issues, obviously, are the forever chemicals, the noises, the limited employment, the air pollution, but there are opportunities to limit water use and electricity when data centers are built, and the city of Eagan has that opportunity to do that,” Armitage said, adding more data and research needs to known on the longterm effects from data centers.
Hansen said the city’s moratorium allows the city time to collect information and figure out how to best regulate data centers. Hansen said Eagan has four data centers that can be considered smaller data centers that are an auxiliary to businesses. “But we have to be careful about where those data centers are located. They can’t be near residential neighborhoods because of the nuisance that they do, in terms of the noise and the vibration, and we know all about that,” Hansen said.