Roundtable addresses how Sedgwick County could regulate data centers

At a roundtable Wednesday, Sedgwick County commissioners and residents grappled with how to address the possibility of data centers coming to the county.

The county is currently in a data center moratorium, as tech companies are buying land near Garden Plain and Colwich, which nearby residents fear is for building centers.

The county’s moratorium is set to expire June 11 or when the county creates regulations for the facilities.

“This is a new animal,” county resident John Hecht said, “and we need to do it right. Take the time to do it right.”

The county brought together several western Sedgwick County residents for the roundtable, as well as subject matter experts from the Kansas Department of Commerce, Evergy and economic development groups.

Residents asked whether the county’s potential regulations would address land usage, energy and water consumption, and noise levels.

“I want people to understand this group is not ‘Hell, no,’” resident Mike Betzen said. “We’re actually saying, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’”

Commissioners did not take action on the regulations during the roundtable, but did express some potential concerns about water and energy usage.

Data centers often require large amounts of water and energy to run the computer and storage systems in their facilities.

“The water is a major issue,” County Commissioner Jim Howell asked. “What are we going to do about water in Sedgwick County?”

A representative from the Commerce Department told the group that a new law incentivizing data centers to build in the state requires a water conservation plan.

“So as we’re talking about the data centers, not only is it important on what size the data center is, it’s important to know what kind of cooling technology” they’re using, Paul Hughes with the KDOC said.

Evergy addressed concerns about rising energy costs due to data centers being built in the county.

It recently reached an agreement through the Kansas Corporation Commission to place tariffs on large load users, such as data centers, to offset potential increased costs to smaller customers.

“We tried to get ahead of all the things happening with data centers,” Ebony Clemons with Evergy said.

However, residents in attendance, many of whom live in rural areas not serviced by Evergy, pointed out that that wouldn’t apply to them.

“That means the citizens are still going to be impacted by that,” resident Patrick Kraus said.

Tonya Witherspoon, who works in the local tech industry, asked the county to have regulations in place to address residents’ concerns, as well as potentially creating an expert group to help make decisions about data centers in the county moving forward.

“It won’t be something we put on the shelf … and we’re done,” Witherspoon said. “This will be something that we have to attend to. This is … something that we have to continue to watch.”

Sedgwick County will host another data center town hall, including a presentation from the planning department about data centers, at 4:30 p.m. on March 31 at the Sedgwick County Extension Center, 7001 W. 21st St.