HUBBARD — Officials and residents have shared their own experiences and research regarding data centers over the past few months, and on Monday, they heard from someone who made the two-hour trek to give some perspective.

Joe Fuller, a Centerburg, Ohio resident, said that with his thermal engineering degree, he’s worked in 12 data centers across the state, as well as ones in Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Kentucky.

“Data centers that would come here — it’s going to affect your water, 100%. The water quality will not be there. These data centers can consume enormous amounts of electricity, based off the numbers that I ran and all the data centers that I’ve been in,” he said.

Fuller said residents can expect light pollution as far as 20 miles away, noting that he lives 25 miles from New Albany, the location two officials toured, and it looks like a Christmas tree from there.

“These data centers, they’re not for AI; I can tell you that because, out of all the data centers that I’ve worked in, they are being presented for AI,” Fuller said. “It’s not — it’s for data surveillance.”

Fuller said while working as a thermal engineer, he wears a 3M respirator, the same breathing device an automotive painter wears, but at the end of his work day, his mask is black.

“That’s from working in and outside of the building; now, you can imagine what’s going on in the air quality outside of those puppies — not to mention the soil,” Fuller said. Fuller said he has a friend who farms cows, and he’s expected to have a 90% mortality rate this calving season.

Regarding the data centers’ backup generators, Fuller said each one has about 9,000 gallons of diesel fuel sitting there.

“In New Albany, they’ve made it to where their fire departments can’t go into the data centers, and that’s not to scare anybody,” Fuller said.

City council voted to allow Fuller to continue for another three minutes, with Councilman Mike Kerr, D-4th Ward, noting he was providing a lot of information they hadn’t heard before.

Fuller said the water quality around the data centers was “so bad” that their management teams will not drink from the building’s filtration systems.

“I have seen it firsthand; it is black, the water, it has a metallic smell to it,” Fuller said.

Fuller said companies claim the water is used within a closed-loop system, but said workers use glycol, forever chemicals and coolant modifiers.

“Once that data center is cycled through in the next five to seven years — because that is the overall lifespan of not only the cooling equipment inside of that building, but also the server racks and everything else that’s in there,” Fuller said. “That stuff is going to be obsolete, and then they’re going to start pushing more power, which is going to add more stress on your grid and everything else in your community.”

Fuller said the data center will be nothing more than a shell once its lifespan is run through, which ends when it can’t be updated anymore.