Weekly newsletter: April 15, 2026

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The Desk's Editorial Director on what's coming next

A line of traffic raises clouds of dust near Amazon’s data center campus on the outskirts of Canton, Miss., in February. Construction on the complex is ongoing. (Rogelio V. Solis/Mississippi Free Press)

Dear , 

Data centers are the topic of the hour throughout the Mississippi River Basin. From Minneapolis to New Orleans, people are pushing back against the secrecy and speed with which tech companies are building larger and larger facilities. Their demands are mind-boggling, and the government agencies responsible for oversight — zoning boards, city councils, state public utilities commissions — often have to rely on the companies themselves for information explaining the impact on surrounding communities.

Secrecy, speed, power imbalances — these are seeds for fear and distrust. It’s no wonder there’s been so much conflict.

As journalists, we can help. And that’s why data centers are going to be one of the Desk’s major focuses for the foreseeable future.

Already, we have been reporting on communities that have been confronted with data centers. Since mid-February, the Mississippi Free Press has partnered with the Desk on two stories that go deep into the impact these facilities have on their neighbors. I asked reporter Illan Ireland what he learned from that reporting and what still needs to be found out:

One of the challenges about reporting on these projects in their early stages is that so many questions remain unanswered. To what degree will data centers’ power needs affect utility rates for nearby households once the facilities are fully operational? How will their water consumption impact potable water supplies in areas like the Basin, and could using treated wastewater for server cooling (as AWS has committed to in Canton) have unintended consequences? Will data centers’ growing reliance on diesel fuel for emergency power affect air quality around the facilities? These are all things that I plan to monitor as I continue reporting in Mississippi."

Devan Jenkins, seen outside her home near the Mississippi-Tennessee border, holds an old family photo showing the dense woods that once surrounded her property. Jenkins has watched xAI’s Colossus 2 data center and other industrial development replace those trees.

(Illan Ireland/Mississippi Free Press)

As Illan mentions, a big mystery is how data centers will keep all those servers cool. Tech firms often treat that information as a trade secret, and in our water-abundant region, local authorities and the general public don’t have much power to pry that information loose. But what happens if there’s a drought and water districts have to choose between serving the massive needs of a data center and the demands of other users? Out West, that question is already being asked. It could soon be one we’re confronting here.

We also want to approach this debate fairly. We recognize that this very newsletter almost certainly arrived on your device via a data center. Without them it would be impossible to stream a movie, browse a news site or hold a videoconference. And future technologies will require sharing and processing even more data. For example, some researchers are exploring the use of robots to scout fields for signs of crop disease. Turning that data into an action plan for a farmer requires computing power. Where will that power come from, and are the benefits worth the tradeoff? 

The answer may very well be yes. But the important thing is that we’re asking these questions. And as a Desk, we’re committed to helping find the answers. Look for those stories in the coming weeks!

The Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk is an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation. Click here for a map of the basin and our partner newsrooms.

Reach us at info@agwaterdesk.org or by replying to this email.