Brockovich: a Meta data center outdraws New Orleans — and locals heard nothing

If they're so good, why the NDAs?

Erin Brockovich's report builds one argument from a pile of cases: if AI data centers were such a gift, developers wouldn't need to operate covertly. The mechanics she documents — permits secured before any public announcement, NDAs that gag local officials, meetings under-noticed — recur across states. Meta's Hyperion in Richland Parish, Louisiana spans 4 million square feet and will consume more electricity than the entire city of New Orleans; resident Diane Cobb is quoted: "Nobody told us anything… Nobody knew anything about it. Ever." Amazon's Project Rainier in Indiana runs 1,200 acres and $11 billion. Nationally she cites data centers at more than 4% of U.S. electricity in 2023, possibly 9% by 2030, and Texas facing a $174 billion water-infrastructure tab over 50 years. She also notes wins: New Jersey townships passing bans after organized opposition.

The thread doesn't argue the facts — it argues the motive

One reader piles on harder charges than the article itself, with receipts:

"They're breaking environmental laws in order to meet power demands. xAI has already been busted on this… Companies seem to be fudging their numbers when it comes to GPU capacity & current workloads, likely to inflate their IPO valuations." — njovin, a startup founder and former director of engineering

A second voice reframes the economics: these aren't factories, they're extraction sites.

"Modern data centers are effectively mines, but without even the upside of supporting a local economy… they're pretty terrible and lop-sided deal for existing communities. That's why they're kept quiet." — swatcoder, a longtime engineer

Then the deflation. A reader who knows land development says the secrecy is utterly ordinary:

"Nearly everything in your town is built like this… The best time to announce a new business is when construction is nearly done… did anybody actually like the transparency of Amazon's HQ2 process?" — legitster, a frequent civics commenter

An industry insider supplies a direct counterexample to "built in secret":

"It was not built in secret before the AI hype. In fact as late as Jan 2026 Google was proudly presenting their new data centers in Bangkok… Disclaimer: Google Cloud employee" — a Google Cloud employee

And even a self-described AI skeptic objects to the article's own evidence — that the testimony Brockovich leans on is unfalsifiable folk grievance:

"How are you supposed to have reasonable discussion about land use… when you're getting flooded with input from crockpots?" — duped, a data-center-buildout skeptic

Secrecy is real; the conspiracy is optional

What survives the thread is narrower and sturdier than the headline: the NDAs, the pre-baked permits and the power figures are genuine, and the extraction critique — local resources sold off as compute with little reinvested — lands. But "in secret" turns out to describe how Americans build almost everything contentious, not a special data-center cover-up. The honest fight isn't about transparency theater; it's whether towns can tax and zone multinationals that picked them precisely for being too small to push back.