The quick version

Pros and cons, on one page.

If you only read one page on this site, make it this one. Each topic below gives the strongest documented case on both sides, in plain language, and every row links to a deep-dive page where each claim is sourced. None of this is hypothetical: it all comes from what actually happened in other towns.

Jobs, taxes & investment

The case for

Building a data center employs a lot of people: a large Meta project in Texas reported 4,000+ construction workers at peak, with 300+ permanent jobs.27 And where data centers are taxed, the revenue is real: they fund nearly $900 million a year of one Virginia county’s budget.91

The concern

Once built, data centers employ few people for their size, and research finds most lasting jobs land in energy, not at the servers.1718 Eastern Kentucky has seen this before: Pike County’s own crypto facility promised 5–10 jobs,20 and some Kentucky crypto promises were never fulfilled at all.157 State tax incentives also shrink what local government collects.26

Dig deeper: The Basics · Other Towns

Your electric bill

The case for

Kentucky Power has lost so many customers that fixed costs are spread over fewer and fewer bills; that’s part of why rates here climbed.62 A big, steady industrial customer pushes the other way; the utility calls large loads “the best vehicle for eventually balancing or lowering electric rates.”64 New Kentucky tariff rules require very large customers to pay for at least 80% of what they sign up for, for 15 years, even if they leave.58

The concern

Where data centers clustered, wholesale electricity prices rose as much as 267% in five years,55 and data center demand drove about 40% ($6.5 billion) of the latest capacity auction cost in the nation’s largest grid region.52 A majority of Americans now blame data centers for rising bills.89

Which way it goes here is not luck; it’s decided by the contract and tariff terms signed before approval.

Dig deeper: Power & Rates

Water

The case for

Modern sealed-loop cooling is filled once and recirculated: Microsoft’s newest design uses roughly office-park amounts of water,102 and its Wisconsin campus actually draws less than some ordinary industrial customers.108 Pikeville’s city utility says its system can comfortably meet the usage the developer has described.2

The concern

Old-style evaporative cooling at this scale can drink half a million gallons a day,100 and what it sends back can carry concentrated minerals and treatment chemicals.117 In The Dalles, Oregon, residents learned data centers used 29% of the city’s water only after a year-long public-records fight.106 The cooling design here isn’t committed in writing yet.

Dig deeper: Water & Cooling

Noise

The case for

Noise is an engineering problem with known fixes: Amazon retrofitted a Virginia data center after complaints and the noise dropped,35 and cities like Chandler, Arizona wrote enforceable decibel limits into law before approval.40 Distance and design decide the outcome.

The concern

Where it went wrong, it went badly wrong: 24/7 fan hum led Granbury, Texas residents to sue,37 with documented health complaints,38 and in Wolfe County, Kentucky a crypto mine’s promised sound wall became “sound blankets.”156 Constant low hum, not loudness, is what wears people down.

Dig deeper: Noise · Map & distances

Health

The case for

Air testing around one of the country’s most controversial data centers (Memphis) found no dangerous levels,80 a satellite analysis found minimal change after it opened,82 and decades of research find no established health effects from power-line electromagnetic fields at everyday levels.84

The concern

Backup diesel generators emit exhaust classified as carcinogenic to humans; the question is how many hours they run,76 and Memphis is the cautionary tale of unpermitted turbines running for months.83 Chronic environmental noise is itself a documented health stressor.99

Dig deeper: Health Concerns

Trust & track record

The case for

Where companies committed in writing, communities got real fixes: Microsoft paid the entire $31 million for the water treatment plant its discharge made necessary in Quincy, Washington,120 and Google funded $28.5 million of water infrastructure in The Dalles.107 Homes near Northern Virginia data centers even sold for more, not less.90

The concern

The recurring failure isn’t engineering; it’s secrecy. NDAs and undisclosed details have fueled enough backlash that at least 16 projects worth ~$64 billion have been blocked or delayed by local opposition,92 and several Kentucky communities are pausing data centers until rules are written.97 Nationally, opinion has turned sharply negative on environmental impact.87

Dig deeper: Other Towns · The Pikeville Proposal

The pattern across every topic

Good and bad outcomes in other towns rarely came down to the technology; they came down to what was committed in writing before approval: the cooling design, enforceable noise limits, tariff terms that protect ratepayers, spill plans, and disclosure. The Pikeville page lists the specific questions worth asking while the Development Agreement is still being negotiated.

Next: What the Pikeville proposal actually says