Idyllic city was hit by a surge in cancers and miscarriages when Trump's 'beautiful baby' arrived. Millions across America may be next
Donald Trump has called this booming industry a 'beautiful baby' and vowed to nurture it until America emerges as a global leader.
This year, multiple major data centers will open across the US to power the country's AI explosion.
But they're coming with mounting fears that these massive facilities are jacking up energy costs, draining water supplies and belching out pollution linked to major health problems.
In the small farming city of Boardman, Oregon, residents say they have paid the price.
While data centers landed there in the early 2010s, locals claim they worsened a long-simmering problem of nitrate contamination in groundwater - an issue they now believe is making people seriously ill.
Though, AI companies have disputed such claims. Among them is Kathy Mendoza, 71, who lives on the outskirts of town directly above a shallow aquifer.
She draws water from a 165ft-deep private well installed when she built her home in the early 2000s. She told the Daily Mail that at the time of construction, the water was considered safe.
Today, Mendoza believes that years of drinking, cooking and making coffee with contaminated well water may have poisoned her body for life.
Boardman, a quiet city of some 4,400 people, sits in a fertile region known as the 'Breadbasket of Oregon'
Kathy Mendoza, 71, (left) and Jim Klipfel, 49, (right) are neighbors in Boardman who say nearby data centers have exacerbated their drinking water crisis
She said she currently suffers from an autoimmune disease, chronic fatigue, breathlessness and persistent pain, and claimed her condition is linked to long-term exposure to groundwater contaminated by farming, industry and nearby data centers.
'I figured my retirement years I'd be able to go do things,' Mendoza told the Daily Mail. 'And I just can't.'
Her case is now part of a widening legal battle against agribusiness, local authorities and, as of last year, Amazon, Rolling Stone reported.
Mendoza and others allege that wastewater discharges from the company's Morrow County data center have worsened nitrate contamination in the aquifer. According to NBC, the tech and retail giant has been notified of a pending class-action lawsuit, which they may try to settle out of court.
Nitrates are tasteless, odorless chemical compounds most commonly associated with agricultural runoff. In high concentrations, they have been linked to colorectal cancer, thyroid disease, miscarriages and birth defects. In infants, nitrates can cause blue baby syndrome, a potentially deadly condition that deprives the body of oxygen.
A single data center uses a vast quantity of water for cooling its systems. Jim Doherty, a local activist and rancher in Boardman, has alleged per NBC that, during such use, the water gets heated (which concentrates nitrates) and then discharged back into the environment where it is used for drinking, agriculture and more.
Amazon has reportedly disputed the claims, saying its data centers use a small fraction of local water and that its operations do not add nitrates to groundwater. The company also noted that Morrow County had nitrate problems long before its facility broke ground in 2011.
This story is unfolding as America races headlong into a new era of energy-guzzling one-gigawatt data centers - megafacilities built to fuel AI, cloud computing and social media.
In 2025, Trump signed a raft of orders aimed at speeding permits for the massive infrastructure.
'We're going to make this industry absolutely the top because right now it's a beautiful baby that's born,' Trump said.
'We have to grow that baby and let that baby thrive… We can't stop it with foolish rules and even stupid rules.'
Each one-gigawatt facility consumes as much electricity as one million homes and can draw millions of gallons of water a day.
Advocates say they are essential to processing exploding volumes of data, while critics say the environmental and human costs are staggering.
Researchers at Epoch AI say the US will soon host five such behemoths: Amazon's data center for AI firm Anthropic in Indiana, Elon Musk's xAI supercomputer cluster in Mississippi, Microsoft's Fairwater campus in Georgia, Meta's Prometheus hub in Ohio and OpenAI's Stargate facility in Texas.
Boardman residents claim the nearby Amazon Web Services data center concentrates nitrates and flushes contaminated wastewater back into the land. Amazon has denied such claims
Groups across the US are rallying against data center construction, warning of power and water usage and other quality of life issues, like these community members pictured in the Ellenwood neighborhood of Decatur, Georgia
Epoch AI has called them 'some of the largest infrastructure projects humanity has ever created.'
Each can cost up to $60billion, much of that tied up in advanced computer chips.
But critics warn the real cost goes far beyond dollars. The centers strain power grids, increasing the risk of blackouts and pushing up household electricity bills as utilities scramble to build new infrastructure.
Data centers are expected to consume 5 percent of all US electricity generation by 2027. In data center hubs across Virginia, Maryland and Ohio, residents have already seen electricity bills rise by $11 to $18 a month on average, according to state reports these past two years. The reports - from PJM and Virginia Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) - placed partial blame for the increase on data centers.
To offset utility costs in the regions where Microsoft operates data centers, the company has pledged to help foot the bill, Reuters reported.
'Especially when tech companies are so profitable, it's both unfair and politically unrealistic for our industry to ask the public to shoulder added electricity costs for AI,' Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a statement.
In Indiana, House Bill 1007 requires proposed data centers - before they are even built - commit to covering at least 80 percent of the cost of increased generation allocated to the project.
Large facilities can consume up to five million gallons of water per day - that's enough to supply a town of 50,000 people.
They are also noisy. Cooling fans can exceed 80 decibels - about the loudness of a leaf blower - leading to sleep disruption and chronic stress.
A report from UC Riverside and Caltech researchers estimated that health impacts linked to large data centers could cost $20billion annually by 2030, projecting 1,300 premature deaths and 600,000 asthma cases tied to pollution.
Residents near xAI's facility in South Memphis have already reported increased asthma attacks and respiratory distress following its rapid build-out. The company has said it is investing in the community, creating jobs, and working to reduce emissions from its turbines.
Concern over data centers has sparked rare bipartisan agreement. Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders has warned about their drain on energy and water, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has raised similar alarms.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley has called them 'massive electricity hogs,' and warned taxpayers could end up footing the bill for grid upgrades.
In northern Virginia, conservative county chair TC Collins said he was 'ready to go to war' to stop Amazon's proposed $6billion data campus.
On the other hand, policymakers face difficult trade-offs as data centers bring tax revenue, construction jobs and high-paying technical careers.
Tech leaders argue they are vital to keeping America competitive with China and powering an AI economy projected to reach 2 percent of the US economy.
Meta has already struck nuclear power deals to run its AI facilities, securing enough energy to power five million homes.
In Boardman - often called the Breadbasket of Oregon - residents fear the damage has already been done.
Pictured: A technician works at an Amazon Web Services AI data center in New Carlisle, Indiana, one of America's biggest
Microsoft co-founder, businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates (pictured) is among the tech bosses pushing for more and bigger data centers
Mendoza told the Daily Mail her health took a downward turn a decade ago when she was working as a lab technician at a potato processing plant. She said she developed progressive muscle stiffness, joint pain and episodes where her body would 'seize up.' Eventually, she collapsed.
Doctors diagnosed her with rheumatic disease, an autoimmune condition in which the immune system attacks the body's own joints and organs. She said no genetic cause was identified.
Today, her dominant symptoms are extreme fatigue, breathlessness and chronic pain.
'It's not just me,' she told the Daily Mail.
Doherty, former county commissioner, went door-to-door in the area and collected scores of accounts from residents reporting miscarriages and various cancers.
The Oregon Health Authority has confirmed that at least 634 domestic wells in the area contain unsafe nitrate levels, some exceeding 10 times the federal safety limit. The county government declared a local state of emergency in 2022.
Once able to drink from the tap, Mendoza's household now relies on state-provided bottled water, receiving four 2.5-gallon jugs every two weeks for drinking and cooking. She still bathes and cleans using contaminated well water.
One of her neighbors, Jim Klipfel, 49, moved to Boardman about six years ago. During the home-buying process, he told the Daily Mail a realtor said the water was safe to drink. Shortly after moving in, a neighbor warned him not to drink it and claimed it was 'poisoned with nitrate.'
He described tests that revealed nitrate levels in his well at 56 parts per million, more than five times the federal limit.
His household relies entirely on filtered or bottled water for drinking, cooking, pets and livestock. They go through eight to 10 five-gallon bottles every two weeks, paid for by the state.
Jim Klipfel, 49, was not told the well on his new property in Boardman was rich in harmful nitrates
Klipfel and his family consume 8 to 10 five-gallon bottles of water every two weeks, paid for by the state under a declared water emergency
Elon Musk (pictured) is building the xAI Colossus 2 supercomputer data center in Memphis, Tennessee, to power Grok
Amazon's expanded AI data center in New Carlisle, Indiana, (pictured) ranks among America's 'big five' 1GW data centers
Klipfel placed responsibility on agriculture and regulators he accused of being slow to act - but also on data centers.
He called the centers a 'necessary evil,' but he urged communities nationwide to scrutinize how they are approved.
'This is a long fight,' he said.
