Canton, NC just put a 12‑month pause on data centers, server farms, and crypto mines after outside firms sniffed around a decommissioned paper mill site.
The town is worried about classic AI infra pain points: huge power draw, heavy water usage for cooling, and limited permanent jobs compared with legacy industry.
Residents explicitly questioned how a hyperscale-style facility using up to millions of gallons of water per day could coexist with local agriculture and already stressed water supplies.
Leaders are also wary of repeating past industrial damage, pointing to the polluted river and costly cleanup from the old mill as a cautionary tale for unchecked infra buildout.
During the moratorium, Canton plans to write tighter zoning and ordinances that could constrain data center and crypto growth or shape it with environmental and community conditions.
For AI infra players, this is another data point that local permitting, water rights, and community trust are becoming critical constraints, especially in smaller post-industrial towns.
The article is worth a full read if you care about where hyperscale and GPU farms can actually get built and operated over the next decade.
Source: Canton passes a 12-month moratorium on data centers and cryptocurrency mining | WUNC News
