Do server farms in Quincy stink?
Apr 9, 2012, 1:41 PM | Updated: Oct 14, 2024, 9:01 am
They’re used to growing things
in the little Eastern Washington town of Quincy, but the
former mayor is raising a big stink about the latest cash
crop: server farms.
The huge buildings that house thousands of computer
servers for tech titans like Microsoft and Yahoo have
become a cash crop for Quincy. They’ve come for the cheap
land and electricity and launched a high-tech gold rush of
sorts.
Most people love the economic boom that’s followed, but
former mayor Patty Martin starting sniffing around, so to
speak, when she wondered about the environmental impact of
all the diesel generators needed to keep the companies
online all the time.
“There are 165 that are permitted to locate in Quincy.
Right now, 141 of those have no controls on them,” Martin
tells the Ross and Burbank Show.
State toxicologists have determined any potential
pollution, even at its worst, is minimal at best,
according to a report by The Seattle
Times.
But Martin argues the state has only looked at a small
part of the big picture and is ignoring many of the
potential health threats.
“It’s about the short term effects that it has on
people that have cardiovascular or respiratory problems or
small children,” she says.
Martin is clearly in the minority when it comes to
raising concerns. Most in the town near the Gorge have
welcomed the server farms, and all the economic
developments that have come with them, with open arms.
But Martin remains undeterred in her efforts to get the
state to impose stricter standards on the companies and
their operations.
“I think that’s the appropriate thing for a polluting
industry to do, to protect the community they are locating
in,” Martin says.
The state’s Pollution Control Hearings Board will
determine what steps, if any, are necessary.
In the meantime, Dave and Luke wonder if Martin is
willing to cancel her Facebook account to keep from
contributing to the problem.
While their question was somewhat in jest, Martin says
she’s actually considered it.
Josh Kerns, My Northwest.com Editor
