LOWELL, MASS. — The Lowell City Council voted 10-0 in February 2026 to implement a one-year moratorium on further data center expansion. The action followed community concerns regarding potential environmental and public health impacts from the existing Markley Group data center.

During a city-led community forum on data center zoning in Lowell, police officers temporarily detained a 14-year-old girl. Lowell Mayor Erik Gitschier commented on the atmosphere at the forum, stating, "It was warm out. You had people who had definite, passionate positions and they were screaming."

Tara Hong, a state representative for a district in Lowell with a significant Cambodian American population, described the local demographic. "It's majority low-income and working family, family members who are working hard every day to just try to put food on the table." Hong also stated, "It's an inclusive place there and that data center is just smack in the middle of everything."

Shaolei Ren, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, noted that hot weather increases electricity demand for data centers in the eastern U.S. Data centers utilize energy-intensive refrigeration-based cooling and water-intensive evaporative cooling methods. Ren added, "A heat wave is almost the worst situation for data center operation." He also stated, "If too many diesel generators are fired up during heat waves, that could be a disaster for the local air quality."

Diesel emissions can affect human health even with short-term exposure. Some data centers use backup diesel generators as a preventative measure against outages, and grid operators may request data centers to activate these generators during periods of high grid stress. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has issued an alert concerning challenges posed by large power consumers and developed guidelines to mitigate risks from AI data centers.

The Markley Group operates the data center in Lowell, which is located on the site of a former Prince spaghetti factory that operated from 1939 to 1997. Construction on the data center began approximately ten years ago. The facility uses water from the Merrimack River for cooling, consuming about 118,000 gallons per day at the peak of summer. Approximately two years ago, the Markley Group installed a second cooling tank and surveillance cameras near a resident's property.

The state of Massachusetts has designated the Sacred Heart neighborhood in Lowell, a city with approximately 115,000 residents located northwest of Boston, as facing higher environmental and health risks.

Why It Matters

The Lowell City Council's decision to implement a moratorium on data center expansion reflects local concerns about the environmental and health impacts of large industrial facilities in residential areas. These concerns are amplified by the energy and water demands of data centers, particularly during periods of high temperatures when cooling systems operate more intensively. The potential reliance on diesel generators during grid stress raises questions about air quality in communities already identified as environmentally and health-vulnerable.

The situation in Lowell illustrates a broader challenge regarding the growth of data centers and their infrastructure requirements, as evidenced by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's development of guidelines for AI data centers. Local communities, like Lowell's Sacred Heart neighborhood, face environmental and health risks that factor into local governance decisions regarding industrial development.