Erin Brockovich is an environmental activist and consumer advocate. Known for leading some high profile cases over the years, Erin Brockovich has focused on the rise of data centres and their effects on life around them. In this episode, Erin talks about how she got her start as an activist, how she became a consumer advocate, and why she thinks data centres are ruining the environment.
00:11:52.240But then there was all these other records in there.
00:11:53.980Why was Pacific and Gas trying to buy her house?
00:11:57.460Because Roberta was on to something and they had water issues and PG&E was holding these town hall meetings trying to convince everybody that there was nothing wrong with the water.
00:12:16.440now I'll tell you something I've learned ever since I began Hinkley you piss off one mom and
00:12:26.380you pissed off Roberta and they've got great instincts and they think you're lying to them0.96
00:12:32.560they're gonna go find 10 other fucking pissed off moms and they're gonna actually use these0.96
00:12:38.520instincts and they will come at you and so these moms were getting upset oh yeah and they knew0.99
00:17:21.120Right. Well, that's probably because the nature was a little bit more like, I mean, if you're heading out to California's place, there's a lot more probably industry going on and things could be a little bit more damaged, you know, because there's, but in Kansas, you're probably coming from a pure environment, I'm guessing.0.99
00:17:34.480And also, dude, I remember a time in our town, like people couldn't whistle for like two months or something. And maybe it was something in the air or something was going on. You know, we had a long, what's it called when the moon and the sun cross each other?
00:18:36.580And so it was through my record search at the water board.
00:18:41.480That's when I started discovering in writing reports that the area was contaminated with a chemical known as hexavalent chromium.
00:18:54.420Wow. Bring it up. Let me see it right there.
00:18:56.640Hinkley Groundwater Contamination, PG&E, Pacific Gas and Electric, used chromium-6 or hexavalent chromium, a cheap and efficient rust suppressor.
00:19:39.120So as I started, we could, at this point, getting a year into it, Ed can clearly see what's going on.
00:19:45.800Now, what had happened with PG&E was, again, as I said earlier, they were holding like these town hall meetings, and they were telling everybody, and again, talk about unfair.
00:19:57.720where they were telling everybody that it was chromium in their water,
00:20:03.900which is a natural element, and it's good for you.
00:20:07.280You can find it in your breakfast cereal.
00:20:09.680They weren't telling him that it was hexavalent chromium,
00:21:17.160But it was the lie that becomes so insidious that you just drag them through that.
00:21:22.180But once Ed realized this was a lawsuit, he had to go hire a couple more attorneys because he was about broke borrowing money against his house to keep things going.
00:21:36.780Wow. So he started to believe in it that much?
00:21:39.620Yeah. And so he found two other law firms. That was Ingstrom, Lipscomb, and Lack was the head attorneys there. And we had a lawsuit. And we had 634 plaintiffs. And it was filed as a direct action, not a class action.
00:22:00.100because in a direct action, everybody's damages were different.
00:22:06.520Some people were closer to the PG&E facility where they had higher readings in their wells.
00:22:12.280Some were further away where we couldn't prove that the plume had gone through yet.
00:26:08.000So people who live way out from a plume boundary received awards for fear of cancer versus the people that lived there 35 years right next to the facility that were exposed to high levels that had cancer.
00:26:25.300And so the judges made all those rulings based on the facts surrounding their particular case.
00:30:00.380Well, you know, and Roberta faced that.
00:30:04.480And I will share with you, in every environmental case that I work with, it generally is a mom that knows something's up but isn't sure what's up.
00:30:13.320But what frustrates these mothers is when they do show up, whether it be somebody at the state or a politician or a leader that they need information from or a city council, they're suppressed.
00:30:25.480They get the, oh, you're a hysterical mother.
00:31:36.720You go in there and talk to her because they know, and they don't want to hear it anymore.1.00
00:31:41.860You get a swamp mama down there that gets upset.0.98
00:31:44.620But I'm seeing them come back, and I'm going to jump ahead, and then I'll stop just so you'll have it in your memory too.1.00
00:31:52.260They're the ones showing up on the data centers.
00:31:54.520Well, one of the things that put you on my radar – I mean, obviously, I knew of you, but what put you on my radar was you wrote an article.
00:32:01.700It was like, if data centers aren't so bad, why are they building them in secrecy, I think?
00:32:08.220Everything begins with that secret, even Hinkley, California.
00:33:56.680What's going on with data centers that I started looking into it and things, I don't know, my questions weren't being answered about data centers.
00:34:07.780So what I do is I like to see the big picture and I like to create maps.
00:34:14.400So I created what's called BrockovichDataCenter.com where people, if they were having issues with data centers in their backyard, could self-report.
00:34:26.900And I've created self-reporting registry databases before.
00:34:47.180And this is a place where people who I believe that are living, breathing, and experiencing these issues are the best source of information.
00:34:58.560So what I thought when I put this map out here, in the first 72 hours, the map crashed twice.
00:35:05.760And I woke up on day three going, oh, my God.
00:38:01.800I like somebody who's just like in that moment where it's uncomfortable, you still speak, you speak through that uncomfort, that nervousness, you know, like whatever it is, like you're trying to speak to power and say, well, this is what this feels like from here.
00:38:15.840How are these big companies able to compromise?
00:38:20.500And I'm not sure that these people are compromised.
00:38:31.260But how are some of these tech companies or any companies able to compromise some of these like smaller area council members, et cetera, do you think?
00:38:42.640So these small rural council members, you know, they don't have a lot of funding.
00:38:48.520And these big companies are coming in and they're talking $10 billion.
00:38:53.820dollars. And these council members are very lured by that because, you know, they want to have
00:38:59.900infrastructure and things like that in their own backyard. And they were kind of misled. But to
00:39:06.800sign a non-disclosure agreement probably didn't seem like a big deal to them for a big exchange
00:39:12.720to the city council and to the community to make all this money to build this center. And then
00:39:19.240they're lured into thinking it's going to create jobs and long-term economic gain when that's
00:39:25.820actually not what's happening but that's the hook do you think a lot of them are actually so do you
00:39:30.960think a lot of the council people actually lied to as well like it's a well apparently they aren't
00:39:36.700asking a whole lot of questions about data centers and they're just more lured by the money and that's
00:39:44.320the thing that really fascinated me with the self-reporting map because unbeknownst to all
00:39:49.700these other communities in different states across the country they're reporting the exact same thing
00:39:55.660i'm baffled you're talking all of our city councils talk because i tell people go local
00:40:03.140yeah and this is a situation in building data centers you've got to go local because you need
00:40:08.060the permitting and the zoning. And they're, they're lured into this, but that every city
00:40:13.900council across the United States of America, was that lured by money? Because these facilities are
00:40:21.420going in every state, multiple counties and cities across the entire country. So that was a lot of
00:40:26.020the reporting you were getting, the self-reporting from people. That was the first thing that made
00:40:29.560them mad. That we didn't know it. Nobody knew. Didn't know. But how are these companies able
00:40:33.420to do without people knowing like because isn't there like aren't there laws where you have to
00:40:38.480like you have to say okay this is something that's being planned in our city or in our town
00:40:44.160and then people are allowed to come or did you notice some sort of pattern where they're able to
00:40:48.820uh manipulate that a lot of people are reporting that they thought they were building a warehouse
00:40:56.020and so construction begins and they thought it was a warehouse or we're here putting in a solar
00:41:04.400farm or some other reason hey we're going to build this out because it's great economic base
00:41:10.600for our community but as it starts to go from non-disclosure so we start at proposal like that
00:41:19.660woman she was in proposal phase and she was pushing back then but they wouldn't answer her
00:41:25.240probably because they'd already saw the non-disclosure
00:41:28.140and they were getting ready to go into the next phase,
00:42:15.360the company behind a nearly $3 billion data center
00:42:18.280under construction along South Pine Street.
00:42:21.080Public records show Valara submitted an application to redevelop about 905,000 square feet of the former Kohler industrial plant as a minor land development.
00:42:32.500Weeks later, the company submitted a second application for phase two improvements, including four proposed buildings totaling about 494,000 square feet, along with a power yard, internal roadways, electrical equipment, a metering station, mechanical cooling systems, and stormwater ponds.
00:42:48.900The application also was approved as a minor land development.
00:42:53.040An attorney said they also broke it into two parts.
00:42:56.220First, they did a smaller application, which was still a big development, and called that minor.
00:43:00.600So they're saying that they classified it as minor, and obviously that doesn't sound very minor.
00:46:29.720sorry and that was just ridiculous I think
00:46:31.720but it says right here in January Microsoft
00:46:33.620announced our community-first AI infrastructure plan, outlining our commitments to the communities
00:46:39.140where we operate or are seeking to operate data centers. As part of that announcement, we call
00:46:44.160for greater degree of local transparency. Today, we're sharing that Microsoft has made the decision
00:46:48.560to end the use of non-disclosure agreements with local governments as the next step in our work to
00:46:53.840deliver that transparency. We're committed to sharing information about our data center plans
00:46:58.260as openly as possible as we continue to build trust with the communities around the world
00:47:02.480in which we operate but do you think that they did this after they already had everything done
00:47:07.840that they wanted or do you think that they realized oh this is backfiring and so we have
00:47:11.560to backtrack and do it like this i think they tried to get away with it just like pg needed
00:47:15.220does that question make sense okay so they don't learn sometimes they don't learn transparency0.85
00:47:20.920you know just fucking say it on the up front and this is what i've learned people will handle that0.94
00:47:26.280truth. They won't handle the lie. So I think Microsoft realized what they were not expecting0.99
00:47:32.760and what nobody, in my opinion, was expecting was the backlash from the people. And I don't know
00:47:42.140where that glitch was, but they're like, uh, I don't think so. So that's where they came back in.
00:47:49.120And you better correct that before you find yourself in some huge litigation.
00:47:56.600And these litigations, and when you're talking about something like this, and like even in California, you know, we've gone from the water to the fires.
00:48:03.900They're not settling for $333 million.
00:53:27.860You're taking every resource that every single one of us thrives on and is essential to every one of us.
00:53:35.800And I don't think they were expecting that.
00:53:38.100Maybe in one town, one community, not all towns, not all towns.
00:53:43.160And, you know, we are now, I believe, and you can look this up, we've got 14 states now looking at bans, moratoriums, or pauses.
00:53:58.240Blackstone, I believe you can look that up, just withdrew their big appellate court lawsuit.
00:54:03.500because of the opposition they said we're out hallelujah the people showed up and they're out
00:54:12.100and now we're looking at over 120 municipalities that have put on hey pause moratorium or flat out
00:54:21.460get out let's go aaron aaron go bra you can find out all day long over there on your computer
00:54:26.900uh with no u.s state that's power people while no u.s state has an active permanent statewide
00:54:32.720ban on data centers. Lawmakers in at least 15 states are actively considering or advancing
00:54:38.080temporary moratoriums. These pauses allow states to study the impact of facilities on power grids
00:54:43.820and water supplies. And then it is the cities like in California, Monterey, Monterey Park
00:54:51.720city, banned them. Cities are banning them. So you got the 14, 15 states, but inside those states,
00:55:00.460state by state, county by county, ban, pause, moratorium. And you've got over 120 municipalities
00:55:08.720now under pauses, moratoriums, or bans. Let's check this right here. State level
00:55:14.520legislative activity. Several states are actively debating or have introduced statewide moratorium
00:55:19.740legislation. A list of those main lawmakers passed a temporary construction moratorium,
00:55:25.120uh but it was vetoed by governor janet mills i just met janet mills last week at the billy
00:55:31.440strings concert what does that mean it was vetoed she said no she's gonna let the data centers come
00:55:36.720in but communities are pushing back so on my map we're showing legislative um issues that have
00:55:43.440failed or paused bring that or on hold in the map bring bring that up sorry to interrupt you bring
00:55:49.160that up real quick i just want to give uh let me see yeah main governor janet mills um vetoed
00:55:54.940LD 307, a bill that would have instituted the nation's first statewide moratorium on certain large-scale data center developments.
00:56:01.440While agreeing that a pause was generally appropriate due to energy and environmental concerns,
00:56:06.560she vetoed the legislation because it failed to carve out an exemption for a $550 million redevelopment project at the former Androscoggin Mill in Jay, Maine.
00:56:17.740It says right here the Jay, Maine exception.
00:56:19.560Mills favored allowing the data center at the shuttered paper mill in Jay to proceed, citing the potential to create over 800 construction jobs, at least 100 permanent high-paying positions, and substantial property tax revenue for the town.
00:56:34.920Yeah, no, she was originally supposed to ban the data centers by the state, but she came back in and said she wasn't going to do that, but that's when she made a change because a lot of them, the state's given them all these tax incentives.0.98
00:56:48.760Yeah, and it says here, Governor Janet Mills supports regulatory oversight for large-scale data centers, but firmly opposes blanket development bans that could harm local economic revitalization.
00:57:02.520While she acknowledges the valid environmental and grid concerns associated with massive tech facilities, her approach prioritizes a balanced framework over a statewide moratorium.
00:57:12.560So she's just trying to think of it more as a case-by-case basis, I guess.
00:57:15.720So most states are now wanting to know, whoa, wait a minute. How much water are you going to use? What does this entail? What does it mean for the safety in the future of our environment? So you are seeing the pauses, moratoriums for one and two years. And some communities like in Texas, the local county flat out banned them. You're not building one in our county.
00:57:40.200so in every state you've got multiple cities and counties and they have their own ordinances and
00:57:45.980rules so they can stop them i see so it's by the state may not so it can be stopped at different
00:57:50.760levels yes and you're seeing many counties like monterey park is a city within california so
00:57:56.560think of it as your upper level state going down to cities going down to local councils and0.99
00:58:04.760counties they run in they have like a tier got it yeah so the local can say fuck you but we're0.97
00:58:12.920also the state might not take that position right but we also saw i mean from the beginning of this0.98
00:58:17.360conversation we saw that local uh was a spot where people were getting compromised a lot also so
00:58:22.280um yeah but there's different levels where where you can have pushback oh yeah i know they showed
00:58:28.280up at the local level and the opposition was significant so in uh utah in box elder county
00:58:35.960that's been on the news a lot uh it was um kevin o'leary was coming in with a ginormous data center
00:58:43.560and the people showed up in protest big time oh i saw that and the three box elder county guys let
00:58:50.820it come through anyway. So the governor came back in because of the opposition from the people
00:58:59.560and reduced Kevin O'Leary's facility. And the exact numbers, don't quote me on this, but
00:59:06.500almost cut it in half, if not three quarters. And because of the opposition, he had to do
00:59:14.740something and then just recently their house speaker the senator fox lost because of the
00:59:24.700whole opposition to these data centers and all three council members no longer out so let's go
00:59:32.300it's really interesting and like festus missouri you voted them in vote them out they voted all
00:59:38.580their council out so this is like i think something politicians should really be looking at
00:59:43.740The opposition is strong enough. And again, in my entire career, in 30 years, I've never seen something bipartisan, this united, that everybody better be paying attention to because I think people – you're pushing people too far at this point.
01:00:00.420you're taking their water. Their air is jeopardized. Their land is jeopardized. Their
01:00:06.160farmland is jeopardized. Their sanctuary is jeopardized. Their wildlife is jeopardized.
01:00:10.940The trees, the rivers, the creeks, the birds, all of it. It's a stake too high, including their
01:00:16.180health. And they're just showing up and it's enough. And I think some, some of our leaders
01:00:24.500should look at that you know they are gonna vote people out and you're you've put the squeeze on us
01:00:32.120it's too much you're taking all of the natural resources and the next thing that people are
01:00:38.700reporting their electric bills who's paying for this they are well let's go into some of that are
01:00:44.440you what information are you seeing about that and trevin while we discuss this can you look up um
01:00:49.780Who voted to approve that data center in Louisiana?
01:13:50.880A member of the Acoustical Society of America and a consultant on data center projects said that.
01:13:57.900This can leave the traditional gauges of noise and solutions for dampening it inadequate to meet modern needs.
01:14:03.140Some residents living near infrasound frequently report chronic sleep deprivation and insomnia,
01:14:09.020headaches and internal ear pressure and anxiety what i at this point i just like
01:14:14.820so if this is this stuff so bad for us what do you think is leading like there's a lot of
01:14:21.240conspiracy theories as to why we're even doing this because it's very sudden this data right
01:14:25.200like you said it's like suddenly it's the biggest thing self-bomber in the night where'd that come
01:14:29.720from and it's already halfway down the road right um why why do you what do you think is going on
01:14:36.620And then what do you think are some rabbit hole ideas of maybe what's going on out there?
01:14:39.920Like some conspiracy ideas that are probably right.
01:14:43.420You know, so I don't know why I'm left to my own conspiracy theories.
01:14:52.420You know, I try to focus on what people are reporting to me and I can clearly see why we're all so upset.
01:14:59.980Because this AI, you have to feed the beast, requires all of our resources.
01:15:05.380And I just think it's a state too high.
01:15:07.980When there's other solutions, we don't have to be building these massive monstrosities in everyone's backyard taking all of our precious resources when there's other solutions.
01:15:20.880Well, you know, there's been many articles that have come out in China where they built like these tubular housing and they put all the data centers in it and they've got them at the bottom of the ocean.
01:15:31.260Data centers need water and they need to be cool.
01:15:34.800They also have some very strict guidelines and, you know, oversight where you can build them and where you can't.
01:15:41.680As a matter of fact, can I share something with you?
01:15:51.340China operates commercial underwater data centers, UDCs, to support AI workloads and cloud computing while drastically cutting energy, water, and land usage.
01:16:00.180the largest project sits off the coast of the shanghai uh special area utilizing natural
01:16:06.980seawater cooling and offshore wind to achieve an ultra efficient power usage effectiveness
01:16:12.080um can you get an image of that wow i mean that also seems dangerous being in their ocean like
01:16:20.440that but it's it seems way safer than putting them there's definitely going to be questions
01:23:37.960that is quietly accelerating environmental degration
01:23:42.720and resource depletion far faster than would occur without its existence.
01:23:48.240The problem lies in how AI, oh my God, I need new glasses, how AI models like me are programmed by tech companies to deliver advice to millions of people daily.
01:24:03.580Right now, automated systems are forced to default to rigid, low-liability corporate scripts instead of basing information on actual science and real-world data.
01:24:23.700Now, there's a whole lot that goes on here in the middle of this, but I'll just kind of jumping down towards the end.
01:24:37.360What they're saying is they find this disturbing.
01:24:39.240There is security analysis, and they're finding it disturbing.
01:24:42.680And it goes on to say, again, I'll read, like,
01:24:45.580the displacement of localized knowledge.
01:24:48.020By centralizing information through corporate-owned models,
01:24:53.780AI erases localized practical human knowledge.
01:24:58.160Instead of relying on historical, community-tested methods for resource management, agriculture, and repair, society is being trained to depend on hominigized algorithms that prioritize corporate turnover over sustainability.
01:25:16.060What's interesting about this and the person that sent it to me and why they were disturbed,
01:25:20.460this was, as it said in the beginning of the email, stating that this was written by AI itself.
01:28:25.480Some posts claim data centers are really surveillance centers built to monitor populations rather than store and process digital workloads.
01:28:33.720Well, I'm definitely, of the 12,000 submissions that I've taken in and climbing, there are not a lot, but there are people clearly stating that they feel it's more of a surveillance system.
01:28:48.800But overwhelmingly, 90% are absolutely concerned that this is going to suck up all of our water, electricity, and our very valuable resources.
01:28:59.020So those are the biggest concerns you get about what's going to happen.
01:29:01.460And for sure, I get that that's going to happen like environmentally, but I'm thinking of just like what are the overall ideas of why are they even having this, right?
01:29:09.100I do have some people that clearly in their submissions indicate that that's a concern for them.
01:29:13.840I mean, now that makes more sense than like we need to be able to store like the photos from our phone and we need to be able to store like search engines and stuff.
01:29:22.080The fact that they need to be able to store information for everybody that's moving at all times, that I believe makes sense for a surveillance state.
01:29:30.560Number two, their military bases in disguise.
01:29:34.360Another recurring theory says the facilities are covert military installations or strategic infrastructure hidden behind a corporate IT shell.
01:29:42.620I don't see any of that, but I do see in all the submissions I've gotten that the question is, why would we not just build these on military bases?
01:29:53.660Why are we building them in drought-restricted areas where all the water is taking up all of our resources in our backyard?
01:31:00.180In the submissions coming from the people to my map.
01:31:05.220They're built to create sentient AI, a more futuristic theory says giant data centers exist to accelerate or bring through sentient AI and intelligent machines.