During the Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting, Jennifer Slayton, a Ridgecrest community member, asked the board to set county guidelines for building data centers.
“I came today to ask the Board of Supervisors to consider looking at setting some minimum development guidelines or standards for data centers, not just to protect communities like ours who are dealing with potential issues to their water and air and power grids, but also so the developers know where is a good place where Kern County likes this kind of development and still keeps the people who live here safe,” said Slayton.
In response to Slayton’s request for the countywide guidelines, the County Counsel advised the Board not to make any decisions yet, as the proposed data center may come before the Board. Slayton stated that these are two separate issues.
“My concern with the meeting today is I’m not sure that Supervisor Peters or the lawyer necessarily heard what I was saying. I do understand that we are focused on the fact that there is a data center and that’s taking a lot of our attention, but I wasn’t here today to talk about our data center that may or may not come later,” said Slayton.
She continued to explain that the county is not ready to develop a data center.
“So one of the things that we discovered in this process is that our county really isn’t ready for data centers,” stated Slayton. “We don’t have an idea of what good data center development is. We don’t have an idea of what it means to have a data center that does make sense with the community that’s around it and is compatible, and we really need to have that.”
Slayton spoke to the current state of the water usage in Ridgecrest and the impact a data center may have on the surrounding areas.
“Everyone in Ridgecrest knows, and the Indian Wells Valley knows that we’re using more water than is probably coming back in, and that’s actually going through a port battle right now down in Orange County. So we know at the end of the day, legally, we can’t add a lot of water users, especially if it doesn’t bring a lot of bang for the buck to our community.
Due to the ongoing battle and Ridgecrest being a desert area, Slayton stated they can not bring in large water uses and that it wouldn’t make sense to do so.
“So for Ridgecrest, we can’t even legally really necessarily bring in a huge water user because we don’t even know how much water we have and who has the rights to those until we’re done with this port battle. But even at the end of the day, if you look at a desert community with not a lot of water, with a lot of aging infrastructure, you don’t necessarily think this is the place that makes sense for us to put a huge data center,” Slayton explained.
Another Mojave community member, Jac, stated that while AI can be useful in some industries, he does not think the data center is needed.
“From the Board of Supervisors, I would like to see county-wide legislation blocking. I know this is unrealistic, but outright blocking these sorts of ventures in generative AI. I don’t think it’s a useful industry to be pursuing at this scale,” said Jac.
Slayton urged community members to voice any concerns now, opposed to waiting until another data center is proposed.
“I think the biggest thing for the community to really understand is that we have to have a voice in this now because if we wait until it comes on everybody’s doorstep, it’s going to be too late,” said Slayton. “We’re going to see data centers coming in like dominoes, just like everywhere else has. So you may not have a data center on your doorstep like we do in the Indian Wells Valley, but you probably will. And it’s a very smart ask for the Board of Supervisors to just have some clear guidelines for how we want those to develop as they start to come into our communities, which we all know that they probably will.”
