Our visionary city leaders are desperate to turn the Hub City into a tech mecca, but the locals are already pulling out the pitchforks. The City of Lubbock recently launched an online survey and packed more than 500 furious residents into the Civic Center banquet hall for a public meeting to discuss large-scale data centers knocking on our door. Instead of a calm, boring discussion on municipal zoning, a separate anti-data center town hall at the YWCA descended into a glorious display of West Texas diplomacy. A frustrated local resident dropped an f-bomb directly at Mayor Mark McBrayer, screaming that “money’s useless when it makes life terrible,” prompting the mayor to refuse such “treatment” before the event organizer gracefully restored order by leading the crowd in a closing prayer.
Why the absolute panic over a few computer servers? Because these hyperscale data centers are total resource hogs, projected to suck up over 100,000 gallons of water a day from our system. Even better, developers like to “bring their own power” by stacking dozens or hundreds of diesel backup generators. This arrives perfectly in tandem with a proposed EPA rule change that might hand the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality the right to scale back public protest opportunities for minor air pollution permits. Naturally, our City Council seemed a little fuzzy on what these facilities actually do—with members literally asking what their purpose is, only to be told they host AI hubs and crypto mining. But City Manager Jarrett Atkinson crunched the numbers and promised a $750 million facility could net the city a cool $3.3 million annually in tax revenue, because if there’s one thing Lubbock is great at, it’s managing a massive windfall of cash.
The public comments section at the Civic Center was an absolute masterclass in Lubbock logic. Activists and residents overwhelmingly rejected the city’s proposed 500-foot residential buffer zones and landscaping rules, demanding an outright ban or an 18-month moratorium instead. Democratic Agriculture Commissioner candidate Clayton Tucker showed up to tell terrifying campfire stories about how data center noise causes chickens to lay 50% fewer eggs and drives cattle to sleep miserably against barbed-wire fences. Not to be outdone, resident Melanie Parks took to the microphone to warn everyone that these aren’t data centers at all, but rather “surveillance centers” that closely mirror biblical end-time prophecies. Meanwhile, House candidate Kyle Rable argued that we simply can’t handle data centers because we already have a homeless population we are incapable of doing enough for, perfectly tying server racks to systemic socio-economic issues.
After all, who wouldn’t want to trade our precious West Texas water supply and breathe in fresh diesel exhaust just so tech companies can mine Bitcoin and train AI, especially when it gives us a front-row seat to the literal rapture?
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