Letter to the Editor
EDITORIAL MUG: Letter art
Dear Editor,
First, I would like to say that I am glad we still live in a country where we have the right to express our opinions and a country where we still have free press. I wish to express my opinion concerning the editorial by Seth Jenkins in the June 23, 2026, issue of the Maryville Forum. I too am a tax payer, voter and resident of Nodaway County, born and raised, and I raised my son here. It was a good choice.
An ABC News report on Saturday, July 18, stated that a Gallup survey revealed that only 14% of Americans support having a data center in their community. I know Mr. Jenkins is not a math teacher, nor am I, and although no survey has been made in Nodaway County, it is likely the results would be much the same. I’m sure Mr. Jenkins knows 14% is not a majority. Therefore, his reference to “an extremely loud minority in this community” is inaccurate.
Perhaps his reference to “an extremely loud minority…made up of conspiracy theorists, paranoids, and alarmist, as well as a handful of well-meaning-but-naive citizens who fear change of any kind” could also be applied to Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal for introducing the Grid Act Bill on February 2026, a bill which reflects some of the same concerns of Nodaway Countians. Senator Hawley has criticized data centers for some consumers footing the bill for corporate facilities, for grid overloads, for long-term employment skepticism and for quality of life impact. Senator Hawley has also teamed up with Senator Elizabeth Warren demanding to know how much energy data centers actually use.
Another “minority” group of “angry conspiracy theorists, paranoids, and alarmists, as well as a handful of well-meaning-but naive-citizens who fear change of any kind,” according to Mr. Jenkins, might refer to the 7,197 people who have signed a petition on change.org to stop the AI data center from being built in Nodaway County and other Missouri Counties. Not all of these people are residents of Nodaway County but they definitely oppose the building of such a center.
All living things, plants, animals and people must have water to survive. Data centers are water guzzlers and so far the developers have not been forthcoming with an accurate report of the amount of water the center and turbines will actually be consuming.
Our county commissioners have wisely passed a six-month moratorium to study the effects of the proposed data center on the citizens of Nodaway County, citizens they were elected to represent.
Are we in Nodaway County so greedy that we don’t care about our neighbors, those neighbors who, through no choice of their own, find themselves living in proximity to a proposed data center, who stand to lose everything they have worked for and planned to pass on to their children and grandchildren?
Hopefully, readers will investigate on their own and see what is at stake.
Irene Alexander
Barnard
