Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of PVC.news’ four-part series examining the proposed NCDC data center planned near the southern entrance to Pahrump. In Part 1, consultant Russ Meads explained how concerns over water use led him from opposing the project to supporting it after spending more than a year researching modern data center technology. In this installment, we examine what the proposed campus could actually look and sound like while addressing several questions residents have raised about safety, security and the facility’s overall design.
For Russ Meads, answering questions about water was only the beginning.
Once his research convinced him that the proposed Pahrump data center could operate without using groundwater for cooling, he found himself asking an entirely new set of questions.
What would the facility actually look like?
Would nearby residents hear a constant mechanical hum day and night?
Would cooling equipment create environmental concerns of its own?
And were some of the claims circulating on social media rooted in fact or misunderstanding?
Rather than relying on rumors or online discussions, Meads said he spent the next several months continuing his research. He toured existing facilities, spoke with engineers, reviewed technical information and visited operating data centers to compare what he was learning with what he could see and hear for himself.
“The deeper I got into it, the more I realized that a lot of what I believed—or had heard—just wasn’t matching what I was finding,” Meads said.
One of the first misconceptions he says he had to overcome involved what the facility would actually look like.
“We all paint a picture in our heads,” Meads said. “A gigantic ugly concrete box with razor wire on top…it’s like a prison.”
He admits that’s exactly what he originally imagined.
But after reviewing architectural renderings and the proposed site plan, Meads said he realized the project was designed much differently than he had expected.
Rather than placing buildings immediately adjacent to Highway 160, the proposal calls for the campus to sit hundreds of feet east of the highway. Landscape berms, trees and other screening features are planned along the perimeter to soften views from surrounding roadways, while the nearest homes would remain approximately 1,100 feet from the proposed buildings.
“We’ve been very picky with these guys about what we expect,” Meads said. “If we are locally going to support their project, it has to be something that we could be proud of.”
He believes the visual impression many residents have today is based largely on imagination rather than the actual proposal.
“The renderings of the buildings…they’re gorgeous,” he said. “They’re actually really nice buildings.”
Another concern he frequently hears from residents is whether the facility would create constant noise.
It’s a question Meads says he once shared.
Instead of relying solely on technical reports, he decided to visit an operating data center himself.
One facility in particular became central to his research: the Switch campus in Las Vegas.
Located near Warm Springs Road, the campus sits immediately adjacent to established residential neighborhoods, making it an opportunity to experience firsthand what nearby homeowners hear on a daily basis.
Curious how far sound actually traveled, Meads said he walked and drove around the surrounding neighborhood, listening from various locations. Even in residential areas adjacent to the facility, he said he was unable to hear the equipment operating, an experience that challenged what he had expected before seeing the facility for himself. After moving to an area between two buildings, Meads was able to hear a slight hum, when road traffic and overhead planes were absent, but it wasn’t significant. Testing how far the sound traveled, he slowly drove away from the facility, stopping roughly every 100 feet to listen.
By approximately 300 feet away, he could no longer hear the equipment operating.
The proposed Pahrump development, by comparison, would place the nearest residences roughly 1,100 feet from the buildings—more than three times that distance. In addition, Meads said the design calls for rooftop mechanical equipment surrounded by sound-reducing parapets intended to further minimize any operational noise.
Developers have also completed an acoustical study targeting a maximum operational sound level of approximately 55 decibels at the property line, according to Meads.
To help put that number into perspective, he compared it to the ambient sounds typically heard in a quiet backyard with birds chirping, noting that traffic along Highway 160 generally produces significantly higher noise levels than the proposed facility.
For Meads, the experience at Switch reinforced a lesson that had begun with his research into water consumption: many of the concerns he initially held simply didn’t match what he observed firsthand.
For Meads, that comparison completely changed how he viewed the project.
Instead of asking whether a data center would use too much water, he found himself asking what other realistic use of the property would consume less.
That realization, he said, became one of the defining moments in his year-and-a-half-long effort to separate assumptions from engineering realities.
In researching the proposal, however, water consumption wasn’t the only issue he wanted answered. He also began looking into another concern that has surfaced repeatedly in public discussions: the refrigerants used inside modern cooling systems and questions surrounding so-called “forever chemicals.”
According to Meads, questions about refrigerants often become intertwined with discussions about water use, leading some residents to believe that eliminating water consumption simply replaces one environmental concern with another.
He said that isn’t how the proposed system is designed to operate.
“The question has become…what happens to that if you have to service it?” Meads said.
Meads compares the process to the refrigeration system found in household appliances or commercial ice machines. Just as those systems contain refrigerant sealed within a closed system, he said the proposed data center’s chillers would keep the cooling medium contained inside the equipment under normal operation.
If major maintenance were ever required, Meads said licensed technicians would recover the refrigerant into approved containers before repairs are performed, much like technicians servicing commercial refrigeration equipment. The material would then be transported to an approved disposal or recycling facility in accordance with existing regulations.
“Otherwise it stays in there forever until there’s a problem,” he said.
For Meads, researching the cooling system reinforced a theme that surfaced repeatedly throughout his investigation. He said many of the concerns he originally had stemmed from older technologies or assumptions that didn’t accurately reflect the design being proposed for Pahrump.
“I thought this was some weird technology that nobody had ever seen before,” he said later in the interview. “You go to Vegas—every single casino, every hotel—this is how they cool their buildings.”
As his research continued, Meads found himself looking into nearly every concern he encountered online or heard during community conversations.
One claim involved reports suggesting data centers had contaminated groundwater in other parts of the country.
Rather than accepting those reports at face value, Meads said he traveled to Evanston, Wyoming, after reading articles that linked a data center project to a water contamination incident.
What he found, he said, differed from the headlines.
According to Meads, the incident involved a contractor working on infrastructure associated with the project rather than the data center itself. He said he learned the contamination resulted from a failed backflow device on a water truck and was unrelated to the operation of a completed data center.
Experiences like that reinforced his decision to investigate claims personally whenever possible instead of relying solely on social media discussions.
That same approach led him to examine other concerns raised by residents, including electromagnetic fields, privacy and security.
Electromagnetic fields, commonly referred to as EMF, have become a frequent topic in online discussions surrounding data centers.
Meads said it was an area he knew little about before beginning his research.
“I didn’t know much about it until I started researching about it,” he said.
Based on the information he reviewed, Meads said the servers inside a data center generate electromagnetic fields that dissipate within inches of the equipment and do not extend outside the building. He contrasted that with the electronic devices people use every day, emphasizing that the proposed facility would not expose nearby residents to measurable EMF simply because of its location.
Another misconception he frequently hears is that the facility would somehow collect personal information from passing motorists or nearby residents.
“That’s not how it works,” Meads said.
He explained that the proposed campus would communicate through hardwired fiber-optic infrastructure rather than wireless transmission, meaning information stored inside the facility would not be broadcast over the surrounding area.
Security, however, is a different matter.
Because data centers store sensitive information for businesses, government agencies and other organizations, Meads said modern facilities are designed with extensive physical security measures that strictly control access to the campus.
He noted that perimeter walls commonly seen around facilities such as the Switch campus are intended primarily for security rather than noise reduction.
“It will be security access only,” Meads said. “There will be no entrance, no exits without having that.”
For Meads, each topic ultimately brought him back to the same conclusion.
The more he researched, the more he found that many of the criticisms being shared locally centered on older facilities, outdated technology or assumptions that didn’t reflect the proposal currently under consideration in Pahrump.
That doesn’t mean, he emphasized, that every data center is the same.
“I’ve been to a couple of data centers where I’m like, I don’t think I’d want that in my backyard,” Meads acknowledged.
Instead, he believes each project should be evaluated on its own design, engineering and operating plans rather than assumptions based on unrelated developments elsewhere.
Near the end of the interview, Meads reflected on how dramatically his own perspective had changed since first hearing about the proposal.
“I was one of the negative chirpers,” he said. “But it was because of all the negative information out there that simply isn’t related to this project.”
Once he satisfied himself that his initial concerns about water use and several other issues were not supported by the engineering plans he reviewed, he said changing his position became an easy decision.
“When I found out that was not true, I changed my mind very quickly,” Meads said. “Then I said, ‘Well, okay, this has got a lot of really great positives.'”
While opinions about whether the project belongs in Pahrump will undoubtedly continue to differ, Meads hopes discussions moving forward focus on verified information rather than assumptions.
“I think, at the end of the day, after I’ve had a chance to sit with folks and show them the actual engineering behind it—the facts behind it—most of them will change their mind on those specific topics,” he said. “Traffic is undebatable. Water is undebatable. Noise is undebatable. What is opinion-based is what it will look like.”
The conversation surrounding the proposed development, however, extends well beyond questions of water, appearance and noise.
For Meads, answering those misconceptions was only the beginning.
In Part 3 of this series, PVC.news will examine why Meads believes the proposed data center could have a lasting economic impact on Pahrump, including projected tax revenue, employment opportunities, infrastructure improvements and the potential long-term effects on schools and community services.
For more details on the project, visit https://mansetechcampus.com/.
