Brookhaven hearing to ponder moratorium on plans for AI data centers until 2028

The Brookhaven Town Board will hold a public hearing ahead of a vote that could bar developers from submitting plans for AI data centers until early 2028.

Following concerns over the amounts of energy a data center would draw from the Island’s power grid and the amount of water needed to cool the facility, the board at its Thursday night meeting unanimously agreed to host a public hearing in July regarding an 18-month moratorium on applications to build these warehouse spaces designed for massive computing power.

The vote arrived on the heels of a flyer that made the rounds on social media calling on residents to attend Thursday’s Town Board meeting to oppose a data center proposed in Yaphank.

Although the Supervisor Dan Panico said the town planning board has not received any applications for an AI data center, Manhattan-based WF Industrial XII submitted plans for one in Yaphank to the New York Independent System Operator, which oversees the state’s electrical supply, Newsday previously reported.

Panico began Thursday’s meeting addressing the flyer as well as the potential regional impacts of an AI data center. He expressed concern regarding "exorbitant rates we pay for electric already, and the fact that water is drawn from a sole-source aquifer below our feet."

The public hearing on the moratorium is set for 5:30 p.m. on July 16 during a regularly scheduled board meeting at Brookhaven Town Hall. Many residents who attended Thursday’s meeting spoke on the matter during a general comment period. Residents addressing the board decried AI as well as a data center’s impacts on water quality and consumption and volunteer fire department’s capabilities to combat fires at such facilities.

"My main concerns are the water usage [and] the rise in energy bills," Maheen Sayeed, 29, of Holtsville, told Newsday after speaking to the board during the comment period. "Data centers are going to use so much energy, it’s going to worsen the climate crisis, it’s going to raise our bills which are already going up because we’re dependent on fossil fuels."

An 18-month moratorium, Panico said, would bide the town time to coordinate a "regional response" to addressing data center development. In addition to working with LIPA and the Suffolk County Water Authority, Panico said he wants to work with the other nine townships within Suffolk County to "avoid an approval" of a data center in any one town "that is to the chagrin of each and every one of us."

"The possibility of a haphazard approval system by municipal zoning authorities individual from each other, to me, doesn’t make any sense," Panico said. He added that during the moratorium, the townships and authorities may agree "that Long Island is not the region" for a data center.

After hearing from residents at the July hearing, the board could vote on the moratorium that night, according to town spokesperson Drew Scott. 

The flyer calling on residents to fill Town Hall for the Thursday meeting was developed with the help of AI by a volunteer with the Brookhaven Landfill Action and Remediation Group, a member of the grassroots coalition told the board. Several speakers, including those from BLARG, called on the board to consider a longer pause or even a permanent ban on applications for AI data centers. An online petition for a ban on such development in the Town of Brookhaven garnered nearly 5,200 signatures about 6:15 p.m. Thursday evening.

"An 18-moratorium is a band-aid," BLARG member Monique Fitzgerald, of Bellport, told the board. "We need a full stop. ... There’s no reason to entertain a data center ever here."