MOORREESBURG – The community of Moorreesburg is digging in its heels against plans to build a giant solar farm and a thirsty data centre in this small Swartland town.

While drought threatens, data centres guzzle thousands of litres of water – mainly for cooling. Opportunity Green writes on its website that a large data centre can consume 15 000 litres of water daily. This equals the daily water consumption of 40 000 people.

It also consumes huge amounts of power – to keep a data centre running can use about 40 MW daily. This is similar to the power consumption of about 100 000 average households per day.

Because of the environmental impact, around 100 households have now signed a petition to persuade the Swartland municipality to reject an application for the rezoning of a total of 10 ha of smallholdings to an industrial area. It is earmarked for the construction of the solar farm and data centre.

Marius Posthumus, a marine engineer who lives on a smallholding in Hooikraal – right next to the land where developers plan to build the data centre and solar farm – says he received a letter about a rezoning application for six smallholdings to a special industrial area.

He and residents believe Moorreesburg is under siege from American companies that want to build data centres right across the world and target the residents’ water, land and air. The companies have particularly set their sights on small towns because they think the people are uninformed, says Posthumus.

Lack of information

Diana van der Merwe, who lives on a farm outside Moorreesburg, says residents have almost no information about the project, but had to submit comments by Monday, 26 October.

“We don’t know what to comment on because we don’t know what the impact of the project on our people and natural environment – especially our water – will be.

“We therefore urge the Swartland municipality to place a moratorium for at least a year on the rezoning plans until all our questions are answered.”

Van der Merwe and Posthumus agree that the rezoning application must be stopped “immediately” in its tracks.

Posthumus has drawn up the petition and submitted it to the municipality this week.

International resistance

The speed at which data centres are springing up, which house computers for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and streaming services, comes at a great environmental cost.

AI models consume tremendous amounts of power. Along with this, it consumes massive amounts of water.

While a battle against climate change rages, this digital progress causes exactly what humanity is fighting against.

People in various places in the world are busy getting more information about the environmental impact of these data centres.

The New York Times writes that a plan to build one of Europe’s largest data centres in a rural area in Devon in the southwest of Britain is now getting pushback from residents. Posters reading “Devon data monster” hang in shop windows.

People in parts of America, Europe, Australia and Canada are now rising up against the construction of data centres. They say if the project is approved, the heat plume that the centre emits, as well as the water that the facility uses for cooling, will have a very negative impact on farming operations in the area.

“On top of that, it will suck up our limited water resources. The continuous hum of the data centres’ cooling systems, fans and diesel generators will cause air and noise pollution. The impact of a data centre in Moorreesburg will have a devastating impact on the survival of the town,” warns Posthumus.

He points out that the rezoning application mentions that the solar farm will make “additional” power available to the town.

“This is untrue. The solar farm will apparently generate 12 MW of power. This is barely enough to keep the data centre running day and night,” he predicts.

No to data centres group

Meanwhile, David Harper of Langebaan recently founded a group, No to Data Centres. The group already has more than 400 members, who share information about data centres – especially those planned for the Western Cape – with each other.

Harper says it appears there is “an overwhelming rush” to build data centres across South Africa. “This is a completely new concept for South Africans. We don’t have all the information about this.”

He believes it is almost like a tsunami that has hit South Africa. “We must stop it. It usually starts with local authorities’ rezoning plans. Many of the developers pull the wool over people’s eyes by pretending they will just build a warehouse on a piece of land. The next moment there are a bunch of energy-guzzling computers inside the warehouse.”

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According to Harper, it is beyond comprehension that the Western Cape DA government has already allowed 13 smaller data centres to be built all over Cape Town, while this city does not even have enough water. “Cape Town was in 2017 and 2018 the first city in the world to face Day Zero – and this scenario is on the way again,” he warns.

According to Harper, no regulations exist – provincial or national – that data centres must comply with.

Martmarie Haasbroek, a spokesperson for the Swartland municipality, says the advertisements for the rezoning application were published in two local newspapers as well as in the Provincial Gazette. The application is still under consideration, she said.

What does Moorreesburg’s petition say?

The community acknowledges the importance of technological progress, but the proposed project for Moorreesburg threatens the wellbeing of the town’s residents, their natural environment and shared resources.

Data centres consume massive amounts of water. In 2018, Moorreesburg was almost without drinking water and many people are still dependent on borehole water. The project will place great pressure on the electricity infrastructure.

The construction of the project will lead to habitat destruction, increased traffic flow, heat plumes and noise pollution.

Residents say they have not been properly informed about the purpose of the project. They are demanding that a proper, transparent environmental impact process be followed.

Kamil Daniel, an attorney at the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), says this council has written a letter to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) on behalf of five non-governmental organisations to put pressure on the government to urgently draft regulations that data centres, “which are now springing up like mushrooms” all over the country, must comply with.

According to the letter, there are now more than 60 data centres waiting to be built across the country. “The LRC realises that data centres are among other things the backbone of artificial intelligence, but regulations must be drawn up that they must comply with,” writes Daniel.

The LRC, which represents among others Open Secrets, Housing Assembly and Foxglove, a British law firm, secured a moratorium in April on the construction of Equinix’s massive data centre near Cape Town International Airport, opposite Gugulethu.

Luthando Tyhalibongo, the City of Cape Town’s spokesperson, says Cape Town is aware of people’s concern and resistance to the development of the data centre at the airport.

The matter is currently “under discussion and part of the appeal process”.

Western Cape government departments did not respond to enquiries about the data centre.

• This article was originally published in the Afrikaans Weekly, Die Papier.

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