MONTGOMERY CITY — The Montgomery County Commission heard public comment Monday morning on a project to build an Amazon Web Services data center in the New Florence area.

Half a dozen community members joined the meeting both in favor and against the new project, known as Project Green, citing concerns that the data center would raise electric and water bills and hurt the environment.

The County Commission has not yet issued building permits for the project. A document from Montgomery County Planning and Zoning said the next step will be the purchase of land and submission of building permit applications for review and approval. 

The commission meeting was led by Presiding Commissioner Ryan Poston, First District Commissioner Dave Teeter and Second District Commissioner Doug Lensing led the meeting Monday.

Janette Seper, a resident of Montgomery County, attended the meeting and voiced concern about the project.

“I have a lot of personal concern with noise, pollution, water usage, electrical usage, and I’m concerned about the data center coming in,” Seper told KOMU 8 News. “We feel that it can affect our environment, potential home values and the feel of the community.”

Amazon Web Services has data centers across the country that run servers and storage systems that power its cloud computing services. AWS runs many everyday technology and internet services, such as streaming services, smart home devices, social media platforms, learning management systems, online banking and online medical portals.

The 1,000-acre prospective data center is planned in New Florence on the corner of Hudson Road and Ellis Road. 

The project website addresses common concerns about data centers. It says regulations require that large industrial customers like data centers pay rates that fully cover the infrastructure and generation costs associated with energy usage.

Ameren Missouri is expected to provide power for the facility, according to previous KOMU 8 reporting. The Missouri Public Service Commission recently approved a new rate structure for Ameren Missouri for large-load users, including data centers that are designed to ensure those customers pay their share while protecting existing ratepayers.

The website also said the water supply will be from deep on-site wells and will not affect drinking water.

Facing questions about the County Commission’s transparency about the project, Teeter said the commission has addressed questions from the public as it learned new information.

“We couldn’t answer some of the questions until we received accurate information,” Teeter said. “So, we brought in people to give those answers; we brought in experts such as Ameren.”

The county has held multiple public meetings about the proposed data center that have seen high attendance from community members.

J. Hardin, who is from High Hill, indicated he is cautiously optimistic with the project and that his community will be watching what benefits the project brings to Montgomery County.

“I think it’s reasonable to be concerned about anything new that comes in that a community is not used to,” Hardin said. “I’m concerned and watching — that’s why I’m here.”

The County Commission’s approval of a tax abatement and incentive program for the AWS data center has also drawn public comment.

A tax abatement is a temporary reduction or exemption on certain taxes intended to encourage economic development. The County Commission said the framework does not reduce Amazon’s real property tax payments and ensures full tax contributions throughout the life of the project.

“I support the tax breaks,” Hardin said. “I have witnessed this in other cities before and have witnessed the decimation of towns when they don’t give tax abatements.”

The Montgomery County commissioners see the tax abatement as a protection for the people of the county and that they made the decision with their best judgement.

“The data center in Kansas City isn’t collecting any tax because they have a total abatement,” Teeter said. “We felt that there were people with AWS who are protecting our local residents to give them the most that they possibly could and increasing revenue with Montgomery County, and we felt that we did the best we absolutely could do in order to do the best thing.”

According to a document obtained by KOMU 8 from Montgomery County Planning and Zoning, the first phase of construction would feature eight data center buildings, a security building and water retention ponds.

The second phase of the project would see another 13 structures built to house cloud databases for AWS, according to planning documents.

Despite the commission’s assurance, community members said they are hesitant to the change that the project could mean for Montgomery County.

“It’s not that we are against progress or not bringing jobs to the community,” Seper said. “We aren’t against the technology; it is just a huge change.”

The data center is expected to create hundreds of full-time jobs and thousands throughout the construction phase, according the project’s website.