Northern KY Sierra Club's March Meeting - Data Centers

Join us at our March meeting for a presentation on data centers! Our presenters will include Elisa Owen, one of national Sierra Club’s senior organizers for its "Beyond Coal" campaign, and Janet Garrison, a Mason County KY resident who’s a leader in "We Are Mason County”, the citizens group fighting a proposed hyper-scale data center in her county which is part of Northern Kentucky Sierra Club's territory. Janet is also a member of our new Rural & Ag Lands Preservation committee.

During this meeting we’ll learn about the massive demands for electricity and water imposed by data centers as well as other environmental problems they cause. Elisa will focus on plans to expand the power generation at the Spurlock powerplant owned and operated by Eastern Kentucky Power Cooperative. Currently Spurlock is the 2nd-largest coal-fired powerplant in the territory of Northern Kentucky Sierra Club, producing electricity used by customers of rural electric cooperatives in northern and eastern Kentucky.

Janet will tell us about her county’s fight against a data center owner who's identity is being kept secret from citizens, shielded by nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) deployed by her county government. As a retired IT instructor, she will also help us understand why data centers are becoming so popular and what we can do to reduce our own demands for more of them.

For this meeting we reserved the Kinsella Room in the Newport Public Library starting at 6pm. Feel welcome to arrive early to meet and socialize with other members and friends! Our reservation ends at 8:45pm. It is okay to bring and eat your own food or drink, but clean up and leave no trash. The Kinsella Room is on the library’s main level, on the left as you enter the front doors.