Nashville residents push to block data center near zoo

Nashville, Tennessee — Residents packed a city public hearing in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday night to oppose a nearly 70,000-square-foot data center planned near the Nashville Zoo. They argued the facility would expose animals to noise, fumes and bright lights.

The data center would run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, next to a zoo that houses more than 3,000 animal species, including the endangered clouded leopard.

Country music star and Nashville resident Brad Paisley urged followers on social media this week to support an online petition against the project. The petition has nearly 400,000 signatures.

"It is not too late to stop it," Paisley said in a social media video.

Nashville's Metro Planning Commission held the hearing on proposed rules that would ban large data centers within a half mile of daycare centers, homes, religious institutions, parks and zoos.

"We have to protect, not just animals, but our neighbors, our water supply," one resident said.

"What's at stake? I think the health of our animals, and that is our biggest concern," said Rich Schwartz, CEO of the Nashville Zoo. "This constant humming noise, the light penetration, it affects photo periods of these animals, it affects their breeding cycles, it affects their stress."

Photo periods describe how daylight influences an animal's environment and physiology.

DC BLOX, the company behind the project, said it is committed to addressing concerns.

"There is a tremendous amount of misinformation," said Chris Gatch, chief revenue officer for DC BLOX. "With respect to the generators, we put them on the opposite side of the building from the zoo. We put them in very sophisticated sound attenuation enclosures. We muffle the exhaust systems."

An increase in artificial intelligence data centers has drawn opposition nationwide. There are at least 4,349 data centers operating in the United States, according to Data Center Map. Fourteen states have proposed laws to restrict new data centers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"We would be willing to listen, and our attorneys have reached out to them," Schwartz said. "But I don't know that there's any resolution for the magnitude of what they're talking about putting in right next to the zoo."