Proposed data center near Nashville Zoo sparks heavy pushback

Nashville, Tennessee — Residents packed a city public hearing in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday night, looking to stop a nearly 70,000-square-foot data center from being built near the Nashville Zoo, arguing it would expose the animals to noise, fumes and bright lights.

The data center would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right next to a zoo that is home to more than 3,000 animal species, including the endangered clouded leopard. 

Country music star and Nashville resident Brad Paisley added his voice to the discourse this week, urging his followers on social media to back an online petition against the project that now has nearly 400,000 signatures. 

“It is not too late to stop it,” Paisley said in a social media video. 

Nashville’s Metro Planning Commission held a public hearing Thursday regarding proposed legislation that would ban the construction of large data centers within a half mile of daycare centers, homes, religious institutions, parks and zoos. 

“We have to protect, not just animals, but our neighbors, our water supply,” one Nashville resident said during the hearing.   

“What’s at stake? I think the health of our animals, and that is our biggest concern,” Rich Schwartz, CEO of the Nashville Zoo, told CBS News. “This constant humming noise, the light penetration, it affects photo periods of these animals, it affects their breeding cycles, it affects their stress.”

Photo periods refer to how the amount of daylight impacts an animal’s environment and physiology. 

The company behind the data center, DC BLOX, says it is committed to addressing any issues.

“There is a tremendous amount of misinformation,” Chris Gatch, chief revenue officer for DC BLOX, told CBS News. “… With respect to the generators, we put them on the opposite side of the building from the zoo. We put them in very sophisticated sound attenuation enclosures. We muffle the exhaust systems.”

An explosion of artificial intelligence data centers across the country has created pushback from coast to coast. There are at least 4,349 data centers in operation nationwide, according to Data Center Map, a research group that analyzes the issue. So far, 14 states have proposed legislation banning the development of data centers, per the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“We would be willing to listen, and our attorneys have reached out to them,” Schwartz said. “But I don’t know that there’s any resolution for the magnitude of what they’re talking about putting in right next to the zoo.”