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Residents urge La Pine council to halt BoxMiner data-center plans, citing water and safety risks
Summary
Dozens of residents urged the council to stop negotiations with BoxMiner, raising concerns about groundwater contamination, wildfire vulnerability, noise and light pollution, and the number and quality of local jobs the project would produce.
Dozens of La Pine residents told the City Council on May 27 that they oppose a proposed BoxMiner data center and asked elected officials to halt sale or negotiation of the parcel under consideration.
Speakers from across the city and surrounding unincorporated areas described a broad set of concerns: potential groundwater contamination from a closed-loop cooling system they characterized as untested, increased electrical demand that could raise local rates, the risks of lithium fires and the town’s limited capacity to respond, continuous nighttime noise and light pollution, and a fear that promised jobs would not materialize for local workers. "There are absolutely no positives to having a data center here," said Erin O'Connell, a retired engineering geologist, citing research and saying "Oregon has spent over $450,000,000 of our tax money on tax incentives for the data center billionaires." Several residents asked the council to consider ordinances to limit conflicts of interest and to require financial assurances and deposits to pay for independent studies.
