Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has a new mission: to bring more transparency into data center construction and its impact on nearby communities.
Brockovich, best known for being played by Julia Roberts in the dramatization of the lawsuit against Pacific Gas & Electric, recently launched a website with a map of data centers across the United States.
The website describes the map as a “work in progress” that includes data centers reported by members of the surrounding community. In a post on Substack, Brockovich said the company put out a call for reports of data center-related issues in April and received nearly 4,000 reports in the first month alone.
“More than noise, more than water usage, more than rising utility bills, the most common concern that keeps coming up is one word: transparency,” she wrote.
Brockovich added that she is not “against data centers or AI outright,” but rather against “the patterns we see on our map: projects announced after permits have already been secured, developers who don’t return phone calls, and local officials who sign NDAs before neighbors know the project is being considered.”
