The Colorado Springs Planning Commission is meeting Thursday as it considers a proposal to build a 50 megawatt data center off the Garden of the Gods Road corridor.

The meeting, which started around 9 a.m., is happening at the Shockley-Zalabak Theater at the Ent Center for the Performing Arts, 5225 N. Nevada Ave.

The proposal, called Project Taurus by California-based Raeden, which will build out the data center for an unnamed customer, has sparked considerable protest from those living nearby. Residents throughout the city have also shared their concerns, citing water and power use, but also concerns over noise and environmental impacts. A vote by the Planning Commission is expected later in the afternoon or evening.

Proponents of the data center have trumpeted its potential to catalyze significant economic growth in Colorado Springs. An AI data center in the city is a valuable piece of infrastructure businesses and the military will want in the future as workflows continue to adopt AI.

Follow along here for occasional updates throughout the day and possibly into the evening:

3 P.M. Update:

Ean Tafoya, who is the vice president of state programs for Green Latinos, a national nonprofit dedicated to addressing environmental, natural resources and conservation issues at local and national levels. Tafoya also previously ran to be the mayor of Denver and has been an environmental justice advocate for many years.

He raised the issue of chemicals and coolants used within the data center’s closed loop cooling system. In a bid to use less water, Tafoya said the industry at large is using chemicals like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), ethylene glycol and hydrofluorocarbons.

Contamination by PFAS are believed to contribute to health conditions, such as cancer, infertility, interference with hormones, among other conditions, the Gazette previously reported.

“These chemicals are made in industrial areas of Houston and other places that also have people living on the fence line. It’s a supply chain of suffering” in the race to use less water, Tafoya said. “You’re repeating the mistakes of the past, like with fracking. Do you know if your wastewater utility can remove these and to what efficacy and what that cost will be?”

So-called “forever chemicals” from firefighting foam at Peterson Space Force Base contaminated the groundwater under Fountain, Security and Widefield, prompting all three communities to install water treatment systems.

The Air Force spent $41 million on a trio of water treatment plants meant to remove the “forever chemicals” from residents’ water.

A little bit after 3 p.m., the commission decided to take a 5-minute break.

2 P.M. Update:

The public comment session has begun. People opposed to the proposed data center are speaking first. Patricia Duke is in the first group of people speaking and asked what resource drew Raeden to Colorado Springs.

“There’s buildings other places, there’s good weather other places,” she said. “Your cowardice is the resource that drew Raeden here. Our cowardice drew Raeden here. It’s up to us all, including (the planning commission), to tell them and everyone else watching that that resource has dried up.”

Her statements and questions drew cheers from the crowd.

After Duke, others continued to ask the planning commission for a data center moratorium. Some took their entire allowed time of two minutes, while others required a fraction of it.

The meeting is on speaker 23 of 103 who support the appeal.

1:15 P.M. Update:

City staff provided the list of everyone who signed up for the public comment in the afternoon. This list included 102 people signed up to speak in opposition of the data center, favoring an appeal. There were 13 who signed up to speak in favor of the data center.

12:15 P.M. Update:

Jason Green, the CEO of Raeden took the stage. Raeden is the company behind the proposed data center.

He highlighted the engagement with the community via a slide. In it, Green said the company had met with residents for more than 100 hours, held more than 30 direct meetings and held three town halls, two local meetings and eight online meetings.

Addressing the water use, Green again highlighted the closed loop system, likening it to a car engine.

“Water lives a mundane life,” he said. “Two years ago (computer chips wanted) 80 degree water, bow they can take 113 degree water.”

The chips in the data center will be Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platfrom, Green said. These are the latest generation of Nvidia chips, “built for the age of agentic AI and reasoning,” the company said on its website.

11:45 A.M. Update

Kate Kent, speaking with the Integrity Matters group of appellants, said a deliberate pause on data center development is needed so impacts on residents can be understood. The group asked for a data center moratorium to be adopted less “everyone on the grid pay the cost” until the science is clearly studied.

Earlier in the presentation, John O’Brien and Jon Forsee presented information on the sound impacts of a data center. Forsee is a professor a the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and spoke to the effects of temperature inversion. Forsee teaches audio engineering and is the composer for the UCCS orchestra. Sound is his bread and butter, he said.

Normally, the ground is warmer than the sky above. But with the proposed data center, Forsee said this will be reversed, with cooler air on the ground and warmer air above. This creates a unique property of sound, Forsee said.

“In the cold, sound travels slower, but goes much further,” he said. “When sound waves hit the warmer air, they’re reflected back down to the ground levels,” and do not dissipate.

Another member of the Integrity Matters group, Deirdre Aden-Smith, said the incongruity in the number of generators and chillers needed for the proposed data center.

“None of the sound studies that were done by any party, independent or the three by the developer, were based on that number of equipment. So the development plan on that fact alone cannot go forward,” she said.

The Integrity Matters group pointed to the various municipalities on the Front Range that have imposed a moratorium and made the same request. This drew cheers and claps from the audience, many of whom stood up in support.

11 A.M. Update

Nick Valentine argued against the data center based on the uncertainties and risks around low-frequency ‘infrasound’ vibrations. Valentine cited a 2021 German study that looked at the disruptions that infrasound caused for heart tissue.

“Our awareness of what those (decibel) numbers mean is so skewed. You will feel it when you hear it,” Valentine said.

Valentine also, partly in jest, argued that the name for Project Taurus should be a red flag for the Planning Commission. He said that Taurus symbolized the bull that Zeus turned into in Greek mythology to kidnap the princess Europa.

9:15 A.M. Update

The Planning Commission starts the meeting after a delay to give more people time to sign up for public comment and trickle in. Around 200 people are sitting in the main section of the theater.

Planning Commission chair Nadine Hensler said that there will likely be both a lunch break and a dinner break during the course of today’s meeting. The dinner break would push the final decision until well after 7 p.m.

Signs scattered throughout the crowd say “No Data Center!,” “Cut the Bull” and “Protect Your Mother” with a drawing of the Earth.

MEETING FORMAT

As the Space Force’s budget grows and more satellites are launched, the data center may be an important tool for Guardians who have process ever increasing amounts of information coming from space.

The planning commission will first hear a staff report and overview about the project. Each of the five residents or groups that filed an appeal challenging the data center will then give a 12-minute presentation. The appellants can cede time to each other if they do not need the full 12 minutes.

The appeals will be followed by a presentation from Raeden for up to an hour. The planning commission members will be able to follow up on all presentations with their questions and discussions.

After the presentations, the meeting will be opened for up to three hours of public comment from residents opposing the data center, then another three hours allotted for supporters. Public comment will not begin before 1:15 p.m., an update from city staff said Wednesday afternoon.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Whether the planning commission votes for the appeal or the project, its decision can and likely will be appealed to the Colorado Springs City Council, which holds the final decision on planning issues.