Marshalltown Official Discusses Data Center Concerns and Economic Benefits
An opinion piece by a Marshalltown Board of Adjustment member addresses common concerns about data centers, including power, water, noise, and ownership, while advocating for their economic benefits. The author highlights the lost opportunity for Ames, Iowa, after a data center project by LightEdge moved to Boone due to a local moratorium. The piece urges Marshalltown to embrace data center development to boost tax revenue.
Mark Eaton, a member of Marshalltown's Board of Adjustment, addressed local concerns regarding potential data center development, specifically focusing on power, water, noise, non-local ownership, and job creation. He explained that Marshalltown's power supply from Alliant Energy and Consumers Energy is part of the larger Midcontinent Independent System Operators (MISO) network, suggesting that data centers drawing from this grid would share costs. Eaton also clarified that Marshalltown's water, sourced from the Mississippian aquifer (part of the larger Jordan Aquifer system covering multiple states), would be shared across the region, and that existing noise ordinances (Chapter 134) would apply to any new industrial development like data centers.
Eaton countered concerns about non-local ownership by noting that most major industrial operations in Marshalltown are not locally owned, and raised a point about the lack of decommissioning requirements for expanding companies. He emphasized the economic benefits of data centers, including permanent jobs and significant increases in local option sales tax and hotel-motel tax revenue from construction, citing a power plant project that generated approximately $1 million for community art.
Referencing a recent development, Eaton noted that opposition in Ames successfully blocked a small data center proposed by LightEdge, which subsequently moved its project to Boone. He highlighted that Boone, without a moratorium, would now reap the property tax and sales tax revenues that Ames lost. Eaton urged Marshalltown residents to support data center development to increase city tax revenue, warning that the alternative might be an increase in local property tax levies. He described a potential moratorium as an "unforced error" in economic development.