We, the Wichita Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Chapter and our fellow Sedgwick County residents, hereby ask that you reject any and all plans to construct data centers in West Wichita and Wichita as a whole.

We feel that the proposed construction of data centers by NextEra between 311th Street West and 279th West off of 21st Street North in Garden Plain and Monarch between 215th West and 183rd West off of 53rd North in Colwich and Andale would be detrimental to the Sedgwick County community.

You have heard from many residents already about their concerns surrounding these land buy-ups from NextEra and Monarch, and we would like to do the same. Data centers are known to demand an enormous amount of energy, have a massive water demand, and generate noise pollution to a harmful degree.

The energy demand alone of data centers to their communities often increases local electric utility rates. This can result in greater strain on grid capacity and may force utilities to need infrastructure upgrades, for which the cost of such upgrades is not known to us. Research shows that a single small data center can easily consume up to 2 megawatts of power continuously, while large scale ones can exceed 100MW of continuous draw. That is equivalent to roughly 2,000 homes at small scales, and over 80,000 homes for larger scale ones. These high energy demands make it increasingly difficult to move away from fossil fuels. There are no data centers currently able to meet their energy demands that are run off of renewable energy, and the theoretical promise of nuclear energy is not enough to make the construction of a data center worth it.

Wichita has just barely come out of a drought. The Wichita community is not willing to sacrifice the massive amounts of water that data centers require for their cooling. Most data centers use over 10 million gallons of water a year. The treatment of wastewater that would result from such consumption would put more strain on local utilities. The land that these companies are trying to buy up is supplied by the Equus Beds aquifer. The same land has also been deemed fertile, and it would be a shame to use it for such a wasteful project. We feel that it is more important to protect our already limited resources.

Citizens in cities where data centers are already in place are facing a decrease in quality of life. The cost of living is skyrocketing due to our current political climate, and the strain that a data center would put on this community would only exacerbate the issues we already face.
Therefore, we as a DSA chapter, as representatives of our community, and as your constituents, ask that you suspend the construction of any data centers in Sedgwick County.

We look forward to your decision, and hope that it is one that is favorable to the community.