Erin Brockovich Takes on Data Centers
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Who is Erin Brockovich and why is she fighting against AI data centers?
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The name Erin Brockovich has been synonymous with a fighter taking on big polluters, and of course, many of us remember her from the film, which dramatized a landmark case against a California utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, which had poisoned the groundwater in a small town. Julia Roberts played Erin Brokovich.
These people don't dream about being rich. They dream about being able to watch their kids swim in a pool without worrying that they'll have to have a hysterectomy at the age of twenty, like Rosa Diaz, a client of ours, or have their spine deteriorate like Stan Bloom, another client of ours. So before you come back here with another lame ass offer. I want you to think real hard about what your spine is worth, Mr. Walker. Or what you might expect someone to pay you for your uterus, Miss Sanchez. Then you take out your calculator and you multiply that number by a hundred. Anything less than that is a waste of our time. By the way, we had that water brought in special for you folks. came from Well and Hinckley.
Erin Brokovich has been involved in other major cases against polluters since then, and she runs a research firm that consults for lawyers. Earlier this year she began receiving emails from people worried about the construction of AI data centers, something that's happening at a frenetic pace all over the country. Aaron Brokovich. Hey. How are you? How are you? Good. Good, how are you? I'm good. You making some good trouble?
I s I didn't set out to do that, but apparently Yes you did. Who are you kidding? I really it was a total surprise to me.
Aaron, it's been thirty years. Thirty years.
What sparked Erin Brockovich’s new mapping project on data‑center construction?
Oh I know since we're gonna
start this way now.
It's been thirty years since a certain legal case about groundwater contamination. changed your life and the lives of a lot of other people and inspired the movie that we know you by. And you've been filing lawsuits around chemical pollutants for for years thereafter. Now you're involved with data centers. You're involved in this for a fairly brief time, right? Just for a few months. And you're collecting information. This is the beginning of your process. Mm-hmm. Um How would you assess uh what the opposition is to the construction of data processing centers? Um Uh how much pushback has already begun against the tech companies on this?
A lot. This is in my thirty years, I've never really seen the people show up like they are. At a very local level. Just down in Florida and they got a moratorium. Uh The city council meeting went on for twelve hours. And um It just it was an overflow. And every city council meeting now, you're just seeing this huge overflow of people. When I started the map, when a community reached out to me.
Explain what the map is.
So It's pretty simple. It's called Brockovich Data Center, but it's a map where people who have data centers being developed, proposed, or up and running in and around the country can report their issues to the map. And it comes to me in a submission, you know. I go through 12,000 and I read each one. So For me it was a visual to see the bigger picture. What does the map look like? Well, with all the the red dots now it's getting pretty hard to s it's bit it's getting pretty hard to just coast coast to coast data
centers.
It's coast to coast data centers. And so
That's pretty incredible.
It's very incredible and it's it is it's actually really um very concerning. You know, they're they're building in many drought restricted areas. And I don't know that people always understand and you know, listen, this has been a huge learning curve for me. And I'm learning from the people on the inside, the workers, the people, the city hall, and everybody.
How does the Brockovich Data Center map collect and display community complaints?
The amount and the consumption of water it is almost staggering. And the bigger hyperscales can use anywhere from one to seven. possibly eight million gallons of water per day.
Now, what does a data center do in terms of the environmental drag on a a community?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Erin Brockovich and why is she fighting against AI data centers?
0:02–1:57
2
What sparked Erin Brockovich’s new mapping project on data‑center construction?
1:57–4:33
3
How does the Brockovich Data Center map collect and display community complaints?
4:33–7:43
4
What environmental impacts are communities reporting from data‑center projects?
7:43–11:19
5
How are water usage and utility bills changing for residents near data centers?
11:19–14:23
6
What legal and zoning challenges are arising around data‑center permits?
14:23–17:26
7
Are moratoriums and bans on data‑center construction gaining political traction?
17:26–19:11
8
What are Erin Brockovich’s next steps for confronting data‑center expansion?
19:11–24:59
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