Erin Brockovich takes aim at data center secrecy

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has a new mission: to bring more transparency into data center construction and the impact those data centers have on nearby communities.

Brockovich – who was famous played by Julia Roberts in a film that recently dramatized her lawsuit against Pacific Gas & Electric launched a website with a map of data centers in the United States.

The website describes the map as “work in progress” and includes data centers reported by members of the surrounding community. In a Substack postBrockovich said that after putting out a call for reports on data center-related issues in April, she received nearly 4,000 submissions in the first month alone.

“The most common concern – more than noise, more than water consumption, more than rising energy bills – is the one word that keeps popping up in submission after submission: transparency,” she wrote.

Brockovich added that she is not making a “blanket argument against data centers” or AI, but rather against “the pattern our map documents: projects announced after permits have already been obtained, developers not returning phone calls, local officials signing non-disclosure agreements before their neighbors knew a project was being considered.”