To the Editor:
“We don’t yet know whether a particular data center would be good or bad for Canton, and the town needs rules before accepting one.”
This is a hypothetical quote, but it’s reasonable.
But if the eventual policy becomes: “No data centers, regardless of their power source, water consumption, tax contribution, environmental controls or economic benefit” — again hypothetical — then I think Canton risks making a significant economic-development mistake.
The former mill site has already lost its original purpose. The town is spending tens of millions on infrastructure, buying portions of the property, dealing with environmental remediation, and trying to replace a massive lost tax and employment base.
That is exactly the kind of situation where a town should be maximizing its negotiating leverage — not voluntarily eliminating an entire category of potentially high-value investment.
And there’s one analysis I think would be particularly revealing: calculate what a hypothetical 100-megawatt, 200-megawatt and 300-megawatt data center on the Canton site could contribute in property taxes versus the town’s $60–70 million wastewater investment and the tax revenue lost when the mill closed. That would put the argument into actual dollars rather than politics.
Burke Clark
Former Canton resident