The race to build AI infrastructure is unfolding town by town across America — and Erin Brockovich, the environmental advocate whose fight against Pacific Gas & Electric became an Academy Award-winning film, has made it her newest investigation. If a data center hasn’t been announced near you yet, chances are one is coming. The question is whether your community will know about it before the permits are signed.
What’s Happening: A Building Boom With Little Oversight
Data centers — the massive warehouse facilities that power AI and cloud computing — are being built across the United States at a pace communities and regulators can’t keep up with. The numbers behind the boom are staggering. U.S. data center electricity use is projected to reach 6.7–12% of the nation’s total by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023, according to the World Resources Institute. A single large facility can consume millions of gallons of water per day for cooling. Researchers writing in AGU Advances rank data centers among the top ten water-consuming industrial sectors in the country — and call out how little transparency exists around their water footprint.
Communities are noticing. The Hill reports growing backlash nationwide, and The New York Times found that data centers are doing something rare in America right now: uniting liberals and conservatives — against them. More than 120 cities and towns have enacted bans or moratoriums, and New York recently became the first state to pause new hyperscale projects while environmental impacts are assessed. Earthjustice and Consumer Reports have both published plain-language explainers on what these facilities mean for your electric bill, your water supply, and your neighborhood.
Erin Brockovich’s Investigation
Brockovich says her involvement started with roughly 30 emails from a single community reporting problems with a nearby data center. What began as questions became a national project: BrockovichDataCenter.com, a crowd-sourced interactive map where residents self-report what they’re experiencing. Since launch, the map has received more than 8,200 submissions from 49 states, documenting concerns about water supply impacts, grid strain, constant cooling-system noise, rising utility bills, health complaints, and wildlife disruption.
The most common thread in those reports isn’t noise or water — it’s secrecy. As TechCrunch reported, Brockovich has documented a repeating pattern: projects announced only after permits are secured, developers who don’t return calls, and local officials signing NDAs before their own neighbors know a project is being considered. Newsweek covered her call for Americans to help build the picture themselves — because, in her words, self-reporting is the best way to get this information to the public.
The Interview Everyone’s Talking About — And the Moment That Matters Most to Us
In July 2026, Brockovich sat down with Shawn Ryan for episode #322 of the Shawn Ryan Show — “Will AI Data Centers Secretly Drain America’s Water Supply?” (watch on YouTube). Much of the conversation covers water: facilities using up to 30 million gallons a day, wells running dry, discolored water, and utility bills climbing in host communities.
But for those of us who follow electromagnetic field issues, the most significant moment comes just past the 1 hour 17 minute mark. Brockovich describes a woman from Michigan with a pacemaker who was visiting Las Vegas and drove past a large data center — and reported a burning sensation in her chest that began as she passed the facility. Then, between 1:17:42 and 1:18:40, Brockovich says:
“Now I’ve seen multiple reports of that. Now they’re starting to look at the EMF and the electromagnetic fields… these are huge data sources, huge, huge, huge energy sucks.”
And she goes on:
“We are energy. This planet is energy. Your environment is energy. Water is energy. It’s all energy. These data centers and what energy they need to survive will take all of these resources all at once. Not just water, not just one city, and not just a little electrical. You’re talking the whole grid… you’re talking the whole infrastructure. We’re talking the entire water supply.”
Video Credit: Shawn Ryan Show
The Missing Piece in Almost Every Assessment
Here’s what stands out when you read through the mainstream coverage of data center risks: water, energy, land, air quality, noise, e-waste — these show up again and again. The National Wildlife Federation frames it as an environmental justice crisis. Business Insider covers how the industry is responding to pushback. All important. But EMF — the electromagnetic fields generated by facilities that concentrate enormous electrical loads, substations, high-voltage transmission lines, and around-the-clock equipment in one place, often near homes and schools — is almost entirely absent from environmental assessments and news coverage alike.
That’s why Brockovich saying it out loud matters. When one of the most recognized environmental advocates in the country says investigators are “starting to look at the EMF and the electromagnetic fields,” it puts the topic on the table where it belongs: alongside water, power, and noise as a factor communities deserve to have studied, measured, and disclosed before construction begins — not after families start reporting symptoms.
Now It’s Your Turn: What’s Happening in Your Area?
This is where we ask you to get involved — because this issue is being decided right now, at the local level, town by town.
Is there a data center operating, under construction, or proposed in your area? Were you aware of it before ground was broken? What are your local government’s policies on data center development — are there zoning requirements, noise limits, water-use disclosures, setback rules, or any EMF assessment at all? Have you attended a planning or county commission meeting where one of these projects was discussed?
And just as important: how do you feel about it? Whether you’re alarmed, curious, supportive, or just learning about this for the first time, what matters is that you’re informed and have a point of view — because these decisions are being made with or without your voice. The communities getting results are the ones showing up.
If you have something to report, add it to Erin’s map at BrockovichDataCenter.com — and tell us in the comments what’s happening where you live. Our kids will be living next to this infrastructure for decades. Let’s make sure the right questions get asked now.
