In Ames, Iowa, citizens will study health impact of data centers before one gets a green light

A unanimous vote by the Ames City Council this week creates an expert committee to study environmental and health questions while the city weighs a phased, large data center plan.

The Ames City Council has unanimously created a resident committee to study potential environmental and health effects of data centers, choosing fact-finding as communities nationwide balance growing demand for computing capacity against public concern.

The action does not approve or reject LightEdge’s proposed data center or establish new regulations. The company is looking to lease 10.86 acres of city property, and its co-location facility would be built in phases over an estimated 10 years, starting with a 3-megawatt electrical load and eventually reaching 25 megawatts.

The city has paused new data center projects, including LightEdge’s, to study it further. LightEdge is a Des Moines-based data center builder. 

“Our goal was to ensure that the timeline fit within the nine months that we allotted for our delay and also to allow some flexibility so that the study committee would have the opportunity to do their work more quickly if they chose to,” Councilmember Gloria Betcher said. 

The Council met Tuesday at Ames City Hall to work it out. 

Betcher presented the plan for a subcommittee that included another councilwoman and a representative of Iowa State University’s student government. The panel will research heat generation, localized temperature increases, effects on wildlife habitats and possible human-health consequences.

City residents volunteering for the study group must have relevant education or professional experience; interest alone is not sufficient. City employees will not join the deliberations. The committee must gather reputable, published material from multiple perspectives and prepare a neutral report. Research is expected to continue through winter, with a presentation in March.

Ames Mayor John Haila said the city would screen applicants and orient the committee. Because the action was a resolution, an initial voice vote was repeated by roll call. All six voting councilmembers supported it.

Ames is a growing university city — home to Iowa State University — with about 69,000 residents. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated its population at 69,026 in 2024, up 3.9 percent from the 2020 estimates base. About 65.8 percent of residents age 25 or older held at least a bachelor’s degree, while median household income was $60,991 and 25.5 percent of residents lived below the poverty line in the 2020-2024 survey period — figures shaped in part by the large student population.

Iowans have raised health concerns around another data-center proposal. 

In one case, Physicians for Social Responsibility Iowa is challenging NextEra Energy’s plan to restart the Duane Arnold nuclear plant near Palo under a 25-year agreement to supply about 615 megawatts to Google for an adjacent data center campus. 

The doctors want an environmental review considering the reactor and data center together, citing possible radiation-related health risks and the campus’s electricity and groundwater demands. NextEra and Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff say existing reviews are sufficient; federal judges took the doctors’ hearing request under advisement.

Ames is separately researching a dozen possible regulatory or restrictive measures identified earlier. The resident committee will focus on environmental and health questions not fully covered by that work. Its report will not settle the LightEdge proposal, but councilmembers are betting that expert findings can separate legitimate risk from speculation — and provide a stronger basis for deciding whether a large data center belongs in Ames.