Regulating High-Intensity Digital Infrastructure (HIDI) And Suspended from FaceBook in the Natural State

I was suspended from Facebook after I posted a statement urging a 12-month moratorium on permitting data centers, AI campuses, and cryptocurrency mining operations.

I was born, educated, and have lived most of my life in Arkansas, which Arkansans call “The Natural State.” We love being outdoors. Springtime and fall are colorful months. Summer time heat and humidity is soothed by delicious fruits and berries, lakes, swimming spots along streams, canoe and kayak floating, and fishing, along with baseball. Winter time is hunting season for small game, ducks, turkeys and deer. Arkansans have a deep affinity with nature that transcends partisan, socio-ethnic, religious, and other differences.

This is why high-intensity digital infrastructure (HIDI) facilities such as data centers, artificial intelligence computing campuses, and cryptocurrency mining operations that consume enormous amounts of water, require electric power in a single installation comparable to an entire municipality, pose extraordinary fire response, suppression, and hazardous materials risks for rural and primarily volunteer fire departments, and a myriad of other impacts on our infrastructure are a big issue in The Natural State. I realized that fact long before yesterday. But what happened yesterday, made it an even bigger issue.

My personal Facebook account was suspended yesterday, May 30, shortly after I posted my latest position statement on regulating the land use impacts of high-intensity digital infrastructure facilities on unincorporated areas of Pulaski County. My post also included my explanation that a twelve (12) month moratorium is needed so Pulaski County - home to Little Rock Central High School, our State Capitol, and a precious supply of fresh water, clean air, and mix of urban and rural residents - can establish and implement a fair, transparent, and effective regulatory framework for data centers, artificial intelligence computing campuses, and cryptocurrency mining operations.

I suspect that my Facebook account was suspended due to displeasure about my views.  I have never posted anything on Facebook that violates its terms of use.

I will continue to publish my views about the need to take time and carefully regulate HIDI facilities. Contrary to the position taken by County Judge Barry Hyde’s administration, a 12-month moratorium will not mean that Pulaski County has banned or intends to ban HIDI facilities. It will simply show that we have the good sense to delay permits for those facilities for a reasonable time so we can make prudent decisions about how to protect the health, safety, and wellbeing of more than 60,000 people who live in Pulaski County’s unincorporated communities from the impacts of HIDI facilities on the electric grid, water supply and wastewater treatment, transportation, fire response and suppression, emergency medical response, and other vital systems that are essential for our people.

The public recently learned that private lobbyists and boosters for HIDI projects held secret meetings with Little Rock and Pulaski County officials for the past two years. It is absurd to say that Pulaski County residents cannot take up to half that time to create a fair-minded system for regulating the impacts of HIDI facilities.

I researched, drafted, and proposed two resolutions and two ordinances for regulating HIDI facilities that Justice of the Peace Julie Blackwood sponsored in the Quorum Court. One resolution explains why HIDI facilities should be classified as heavy industrial land uses due to their electric grid, water usage, fire response and suppression, emergency medical response, and other impacts. The other resolution designates the Port of Little Rock industrial area, the nearby unincorporated Sweet Home community, and eastern Pulaski County as a Regional Infrastructure Corridor so Pulaski County can be involved, openly, whenever heavy industrial development projects are planned in that vicinity.

Little Rock and other municipalities in Pulaski County have zoning authority over how land is developed in their jurisdictions. Pulaski County does not have zoning authority in its unincorporated areas because the residents of those areas do not want their property zoned. I respect their decision. Because our residents have not established a zoning code for unincorporated areas, I researched, drafted, and proposed an ordinance that JP Blackwood sponsored for a Conditional Use Permit framework for regulating heavy industrial impacts such as those posed by HIDI facilities.

I also researched, drafted, and proposed a Notice of Industrial Impact ordinance that JP Blackwood sponsored which would require developers to notify Pulaski County at least 90 days after acquisition of land, or a decision to redevelop previously acquired land, for heavy industrial use. The residents of unincorporated communities across Pulaski County should not become ambushed captives of private developers intent on turning where they live, farm, and operate small businesses, and the forests, lakes, and streams that mean so much to all of us into de facto heavy industrial zoning districts.

The Quorum Court has referred the measures that I proposed and Justice Blackwood sponsors to the Planning Department for review and public input. The Planning Department will host the first public meeting on those measures on June 11 at 6 PM, at 201 Broadway in Little Rock. I encourage the public to attend that meeting.

Before utility connection deals are made that affect our electrical grid, before water usage and connection contracts are made that impact the supply of clean affordable water for Pulaski County, and before any construction of heavy industrial buildings and infrastructure is begun that will challenge our rural fire districts and emergency medical responders, we need to openly assess how HIDI facilities will impact the rest of our County, our Communities, and our Future. There is nothing wrong about a moratorium that gives us the time to do that. There is nothing right about refusing to take the time to do it. I suspect that I was suspended from Facebook for saying so.

That’s why you are reading this post on my Substack. I hope you will share it widely, including to your network on Facebook.