County Commissioners in Hutchinson, Kansas recently voted against adoption of a ban on data centers and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
The Reno County Commission took the recent vote and at the same time commissioners admitted they had not received any applications for either BESS or large-scale data centers reported KWCH TV News.
The station reported that county commissioner Richard Winger told the crowd on hand that rail cars pose a much greater danger to the community than data centers.
“You want to ban this because it has a very minute chance for danger, when we have 20 to 30 trains go through this town on a regular basis,” Winger said. “We had a derailment not too long ago, luckily it wasn’t hauling anything hazardous, because if it would have been, you don’t know what they’re hauling. Well, we can ban everything in this county that has a little danger and we can go broke, but if you don’t want to complain about your property taxes, because we have to have services that you guys want, then we can ban pretty much anything.”
He also explained he was not opposed to learning more about data centers.
The vote came at the end of a two-hour meeting where county residents expressed concerns about data centers and any BESS projects. Their concerns were similar to what others around the country, including residents of several cities and towns—water use, noise, health and fire risks and impact on property values.
The vote by county commissioners came as a result of a late May petition with 875 signatures of residents around the town of Buhler who asked for a moratorium on BESS and data centers.
