I’m the Mayor of Lochbuie, Colorado, and my residents are worried about our water supply. So we passed a five-year moratorium on AI data centers. Your town can, too.

Like many other parts of the country, our state is facing a serious water-supply problem. Colorado’s water supply depends heavily on mountain snowpack, and our Colorado River system has been overburdened for years. This problem is exacerbated by reduced reservoir levels, population growth, and irrigation-intensive agriculture.

At the same time, climate change has led to record heat and droughts.

Our small town reflects communities across the country. According to a recent Gallup poll, over 70% of Americans oppose data centers in their local areas.

A single large-scale data center, depending on location and available resources, can use as much water as our entire town uses. Meanwhile data center energy use makes climate change worse, further endangering our shared future. Data center emissions are projected to skyrocket by 2035.

Water is a finite resource and can’t always replenish fast enough to meet growing demand. We don’t want hyperscale data centers coming into our town and overburdening our already stressed water resources—and polluting our air and groundwater while they’re at it.

Big data centers claim they bring jobs to communities. A closer look shows how flimsy these claims are. In reality, data centers create very few permanent jobs. Most data center jobs are temporary construction jobs, and most of those don’t go to local community members.

“I do want to see businesses in our community that create jobs, but I don’t see how a data center does that when it takes up so much land and produces so few jobs,” Shannon Donnelly, one of my constituents, told me. “We need a clear, evidence-based understanding of the costs and benefits before we make such big decisions that impact people’s lives.”

Shannon is not alone. I heard many comments like these at our........

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