LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. (WTVF) — Following last week's Lawrenceburg Planning Commission meeting, the community is now raising funds for legal representation.
A representative from the Lawrenceburg Utility System gave the first details we have learned from officials on the data center. The utility said the data center is planned to be 4.9 megawatts. It will use 20,000 gallons of water and dispose of that water. Then, it will pull another 20,000 gallons that will run the cooling system. After that, the data center will use 40-60 gallons of water a day.
Elle McCann feels the community might not be getting the full story.
"I still don't feel like we actually know what is, and then seeing the city planning commission not have any questions for the developers that were there, not have any questions for the engineer or for LUS, and it was just greenlit without any feedback was pretty alarming," she said. "I think in our community trust has really been lost because they tried to sneak everything through, so now getting these tiny little tidbits, like... they were gonna cart the water away and do things differently, it's still than really different information than we are getting every single time."
McCann and Tiffany Charbonnet are spearheading the effort to raise funds for legal fees, yard signs, and billboards. They feel during this process laws could have been violated.
"The lawyer would file suit against those things, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to save the data center site from being built, but it's a step in the right direction that they might have to go back, do things the legal way. Therefore have a couple of months where we have a pause."
You can find the fundraiser here.
A petition to pause data center development in Lawrenceburg has received more than 7,000 signatures. The city's population is 14,000. McCann and Charbonnet are hoping to see Lawrence County pass a data center moratorium soon.
A meeting of the Lawrence County Resolution Committee will determine if it will be on the County Commission meeting tonight.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at Megan.Scarano@NewsChannel5.com
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