Dozens marched through Yerington in protest of the Monarch Data Center on Sunday.
The march started at Mountain View Park and ended at the Lyon County Courthouse.
The project would take up 505 acres of land off of Penrose Lane, about eight miles north of Yerington, and could use up to 1 gigawatt of power. That’s enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes.
According to Cleanview's data center map, only one data center currently operates at a higher capacity in the United States.
"This data center doesn't belong in a rural community, in a farm town,” says Katie Calhoun, who organized Sunday’s march. “That's what we're known for in the harvest capital, right? Farming.”
On July 14th, the Lyon County Planning Commission voted 4-3 to advance the data center project.
The developers, Copia Power, said the first phase of construction on the data centers would begin in late 2027 or early 2028 during its presentation.
Protesters are concerned for negative impacts that could arise before then.
“We already know that we've seen in Cheyenne and rural communities that they've had contamination in the water before they even plugged in their servers,” Calhoun says.
“After several years of drought. the water resources in our valley have already reached a critically low level,” says David Janakos, a Yerington resident.
Copia estimates the project will generate $2.5 billion in taxes for Lyon County while using around 800 acre-feet of water per year, which is over 260 million gallons.
Even after the planning commission's approval, there's a long way to go before construction.
Lyon County is hosting a public workshop for future data center rules at the Lyon County Administrative Complex (27 South Main Street in Yerington) on Monday, August 3, at 9 a.m. You can also participate via Zoom through this meeting information provided by the county.
On Thursday, Lyon County Commissioners will vote whether to approve or deny a zoning change that would allow the Monarch Data Center to be constructed. The agenda is available here, and meeting recordings are available on Lyon County’s YouTube channel.
Lyon County is hosting a public workshop for future data center at the Lyon County Administrative Complex on Monday at 9 a.m. On Thursday, Lyon County Commissioners will vote whether to approve or deny the Monarch Data Center.
