Northern Nevada’s full-throttle race to embrace data centers received thoughtful push back from an eclectic group of citizens this week during a Reno City Council meeting.

They gathered Wednesday morning to persuade their elected officials to agree to a six-month moratorium on the approval process to ensure new data centers aren’t unduly stressing the power grid and community water supply, or otherwise harming the environment in one of the nation’s fastest-warming regions.

Many who spoke acknowledged that, in a digital world increasingly embracing power-consumer artificial intelligence technology, data centers are a reality and, indeed, represent an inescapable future.

From former state Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and River Justice native water protector Beverly Harry to well-versed university students and concerned local homeowners, most speakers represented an environmentally conscious cross-section of the community. They were allowed to have their say in three-minute clips.

Despite making sound arguments and echoing concerns that currently reverberate in cities across the country, their pleas were politely rejected in a meeting led by Reno’s professionally charming Mayor Hillary Schieve. It’s hardly the first time the residents have implored the council to reconsider zoning and planning decisions that threatened to have long-term impacts on their quality of life. I am new to Reno, but this is a lament I hear often as the community wrestles with the complications of rapid growth.

Some calls are hard, but this one was easy for the council. Reassuring the public that it is making sound decisions based on facts rather than politics is an important part of its job. The council missed a real opportunity to do the right thing.

It would have been a simple matter to agree to spend a few months transparently reviewing and laying out the relative need for data centers, and weighing their importance against their relative impact on the community and the environment. It was obvious from the turnout that City Hall hasn’t made a convincing case. Was no one in elected office concerned about the political optics of the meeting?

Considering the city’s budget deficit, approving a business that employs few people but enjoys big tax breaks seems particularly politically tone deaf.

It doesn’t take much research to appreciate the controversies surrounding their growth. Communities across the country are raising concerns about water and power usage, noise pollution, outsized tax abatements and other special treatment, and the laughable post-construction job creation projections.

Then there’s the most obvious cause for concern. Reno is comparatively verdant, but Nevada is the driest state in the nation.

Fifth-generation Nevadan Lea Moser showed the council some of her homework.

”From a pragmatic perspective, data centers are illogical, specifically for the Reno metro area,” she said. “Firstly, the number of jobs that will be created by the project is paltry. Less than 10 employees will be permanently hired, and [Nevada Revised Statute] only requires 50 percent of those to be from Nevada. This is hard to reconcile when one considers the amount of water our regularly drought-stricken state and region will have to provide to maintain the data center. Secondly, we have a limited amount of developable land in Washoe County remaining.”

She suggested using the available land for much-needed affordable housing, or at least to promote businesses that will appreciably grow the workforce.

A professional dissenting voice came from Tray Abney, who was at the meeting on behalf of NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association. His message was clear and predictable: Sufficient safeguards are in place, and the data deals should go forward.

“Your staff and community stakeholders such as NAIOP spent the last two years combing through your development code standards,” Abney noted. “The council just recently voted to approve an updated and simplified code that included new language governing data centers. The ink is not even dry on that code, and we believe you should allow that code to work.”

It was clear from most of the comments of those present that there isn’t a lot of faith in the city’s codes. It also makes it sound like Reno’s fresh code solves challenges that continue to stir controversy nationally.

Del Papa gently reminded the council that, lest they forget, we live in a land of little rain. Data centers by their nature are enormous water and power consumers. She pointed out that the Tahoe Meadows Water Authority and the state Legislature are currently studying the issue and its potential impacts. When data centers are used for cryptocurrency mining, the water consumption increases.

“Some of you are too young to remember there was a major seven-year drought during the ‘80s,” Del Papa said. “I remember it because I was trying to learn how to ski, and I was called a geek because I was trying to learn how to ski on a carpet. But the impacts of that drought were severe and concerning.”

As the community expands in all directions, using municipal water resources for data centers that return so little to the tax base seems not only counterproductive, but irresponsible. At the very least, the decision deserves a thorough public debate not limited to the public comment part of the agenda without all members of the council present.

Speaker after speaker made excellent points, most based not merely on emotion or fear of the unknown. For her part, water defender Harry reminded the council of the historic struggle to keep the life-giving Truckee River safe.

“I do subscribe to the thought that when you’re through changing, you’re through,” Del Papa said. “That said, I think a pause to examine and plan our community is in the best interests of all of us, citizens, residents, everyone who comes here. It is time to look forward as to where we want to go and grow, and how to best get there.”

She made perfect sense.

But then they didn’t pause.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Readers Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.