Gov. Kathy Hochul implemented a statewide moratorium on AI data centers that will last for a year. In the meantime, she says they’ll collect research.

The same thing is happening in Brookhaven. The town held a meeting to discuss its own moratorium Thursday evening.

Residents gathered before the meeting to express their concerns.

“I'm really terrified. And we really need our leaders to take action,” said Sonja Urrico, who lives right behind the proposed data center in Yaphank. “I want to know who's going to do the independent study. I want to know the names of the scientists. I want to know the names of the organizations and how this information will be communicated to our broader community.”

“My biggest thing is that it doesn't belong here,” said Lynne Maher, of Brookhaven. “And once something is here, it's really hard to get rid of it.”

While most of the public comments were against the data centers, others are for the proposal.

The plumbers and pipefitters union says the moratorium kills good-paying union jobs. Others add these bans push the country behind in technological innovation.

“There's a robust review process that looks at environmental impacts of the projects, aside from a moratorium,” said Michael Bowden, the director of development for Wildflower, the company proposing the data center. “And we believe that process stands on its own.”

Bowden says they’ve already thought through many of the concerns, such as electricity and water consumption and noise pollution.

They say they’ve done an acoustic noise study, ensure the developer will pay for electricity costs instead of taxpayers, and say water is contained in a closed-loop system.

“The amount of water total that's needed to fill that system is about 700,000 gallons, which is equivalent to about an Olympic-sized swimming pool,” Bowden said. “So on the grand scheme of water usage, this is very small in comparison to even irrigation for typical uses.”

Bowden also says the project will bring in thousands of construction jobs and millions of dollars in property taxes.