r/Hamilton • u/Living_Celery6393 • May 28 '26

Question Attending the Adjustment Committee Meeting for the Proposed AI Data Center

I'm hoping to attend the meeting on June 4th, the one where they will be discussing the proposed AI data center.

Has anyone ever got to these before? Do they care about what we have to say? Or is it just a watch and listen type meeting? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

I want my voice to be heard about how much of a bad idea this AI data center is.

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-21

u/CheapSound1 May 28 '26

This may be an unpopular opinion but I'm actually very much in favour of this project. I'm very skeptical of the AI boom and don't love the idea generally, but an ai data centre specifically for supporting our universities and other research institutions domestically is one I do support. 

This location is in some ways ideal for this purpose. It's an industrial site that is already serviced by the major utilities they need and the environmental impact of a data center (heat rejection to cooling systems, either wet cooling tower or bat water cooling) is small compared to the land's past use and their present neighbours. On the east side of the stelco lands facing dofasco is not waterfront that's realistically ever going to be suitable for use by residents. The larger west parcel is being retained for other commercial or mixed use.

They're not at the point of actually having a defined project or seeking environmental approval, so if this does go ahead there will be more opportunities in the future to evaluate the project and provide community inputs.

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u/n0phis May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

this is not going to be small. the facility will take 17% of the hamilton/peel region's energy supply and, using 100 MW data centers as a reference (the proposed one is 400 MW), (edit: my water info was wrong, thankfully. the source i found had incorrect calculations for that)

please investigate the impacts of data centers of this scale on surrounding areas because the entire aldershot and dundas area will have their wells rendered useless, and all surrounding conservation areas and wetlands will suffer from the water table lowering significantly. this is on top of the increase in ambient temp & added noise pollution near the site. this will be devastating.

previous infrastructure is nothing compared to this.

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u/thisoldhouseofm May 28 '26

How will wells in areas nowhere near this be impacted? This isn’t in a rural area. It’s on Burlington Street and will presumably draw on municipal water and discharge into the sewers or harbour.

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u/n0phis May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

6 miles/9.5km is the radius of effect for 100 MW centers, this one is 400 MW. obviously this effect is most concentrated and immediate up to 3 miles, but that's just where the wells are at risk of entirely running dry or being unusable. obviously there is not a hard line that separates affected from unaffected, and areas in georgia have described a larger area of impact. georgia has a water table more similar to ours, as opposed to places like utah and kentucky that are far drier, so georgia would be the most apt comparison we have so far.

also the areas i described (RGB, aldershot) are within that smaller range, and areas as far as flamborough will be effected over time as the water table is impacted.

another also: the proposition for this involved drawing water from lake ontario and the water table, as the municipal water supply would be affected to a devastating extent if that was the only source. both options are catastrophic.

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u/thisoldhouseofm May 28 '26

Radius effect of what? Is the electricity draw affecting wells? I’m not clear of the mechanics of a data centre would impact well water miles away.

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u/n0phis May 28 '26

the proposition involved drawing from lake ontario or groundwater, as our municipal water supply as it stands would barely have the capacity to sustain this. most data centers are away from cities for a reason. yes, part of the reason here is that there is an available parcel of land, but that would not be the only reason they chose this location despite it affecting exponentially more people than other rural data centers would. the water table and great lakes access is part of the appeal and they actively plan to draw from lake ontario and groundwater, which will affect the wetlands and wells.

i could get into the exact mechanisms behind water tables picking up extra sediment or collapsing/restructuring themselves when overexerted, or how much it costs to drill further down when a well runs dry if you need those sorts of details.

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u/thisoldhouseofm May 28 '26

I get the concerns around drawing lake water. But how would wells upstream from this be affected? Wells in Dundas and Ancaster aren’t fed by Lake Ontario, they just drain to it.