Twelfth Nebraska county temporarily bans data centers

The Logan County Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday to approve a moratorium on data centers, making Logan the 12th county in the state to temporarily halt any data center construction.

The 12-month development ban also bars wind and solar energy systems, as well as cryptocurrency mining facilities, County Clerk Jennifer Nicholson said.

“Data centers are popping up everywhere,” Nicholson said. “We are in the middle of redoing our comprehensive plan and zoning regulations, and we want to get those in place since we currently don’t have anything that addresses data centers.”

Eleven other counties already have moratoriums in place: Butler, Box Butte, Custer, Dundy, Furnas, Hayes, Harlan, Johnson, Kearney, Otoe and Seward.

Cass, Gage and Garfield county planning commissions have voted in favor of moratoriums, but they await final approval from their respective county boards.

Logan County Commissioner Jon Hill said the moratorium buys the county time to finish refining its regulations in order to protect the county’s resources. While Hill said several residents are in favor of data centers and the business they may bring to the region, others are concerned about water use and how a center might impact the county’s electric supply and rates. He said he has questions of his own.

“I do have questions about why they cover so much land,” Hill said, referring to hyperscale data centers. “Some of them I’ve read about are three or five thousand acres.”

One potential data center developer, Tenaska, sent a representative to a Gage County meeting on moratoriums. The representative warned that moratoriums can create the appearance of being closed for business. Hill said that would not apply in Logan County.

“There might be an appearance that way, but I can’t say why,” Hill said. “Because we’ve made it plain in our action that it would be just twelve months until we can get regulations fixed up for them.”

Lincoln County Commissioners, on the other hand, rejected a moratorium earlier this week. Despite a large crowd showing up in force to advocate for strict regulations around data centers, or, better yet, a moratorium, board members argued that their existing regulations that address data centers are enough. Judy Clark, development director for the county, said the county is still working on refining those regulations that touch on data centers. Since the vote, county election officials confirmed a recall drive has been initiated against three of the five county commissioners.

Other counties are also reworking their zoning regulations, even ones that do not have moratoriums that temporarily bar development. This comes after legislation passed by lawmakers this year setting up a timeline for county boards to follow when they receive special or conditional use permit applications, typically used by data center developers. While some bills, like LB1261, do come with protections for counties, such as requirements for any developer needing a great deal of power to finance upgrades to the grid, many counties are working to ensure that any developer that hopes to build in their region has to abide by local rules as well, tailored to suit the community.