Health & Noise — The neighbors call it ‘living in hell’ · #45strong

What residents next door report.

U.S. News & World Report, April 2026: residents of Northern Virginia and rural Michigan, living near hyperscale data centers, describe the experience as “living in hell.” The reported symptoms cluster: constant white noise audible inside the home, sleep disturbance, headaches, vertigo, ear pain, hypertension.^H1 EESI's research links sustained noise exposure above 65 decibels to elevated stress and blood pressure.^H2

“If you have a place that is dumping all these emissions — their annual emissions — in just a couple of days, that's like a health earthquake.”— Researcher quoted in Center for Biological Diversity petition to California regulators on data-center diesel emissions, April 2026.^H3

The noise is not a side effect. It's the operating profile.

Hyperscale data centers run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The cooling load is enormous and constant — banks of industrial chillers and air handlers run continuously. Generators are tested weekly. Outside the property line, the result is a continuous low-frequency hum that travels further than higher-pitched noise and that residential walls do not block. People do not get used to it.

Sound pressure, decibels (dBA)

FIG. — Decibel scale is logarithmic. Every 10 dB increase is roughly twice as loud to the human ear. Diesel generator banks running through the night sit ~55 dB above a quiet rural night.

An industrial diesel backup generator at a data center. — FIG. H·2 — A single industrial diesel backup generator unit. A hyperscale data center maintains banks of these — kept on site, fueled, and tested through the night so the racks never go dark during a grid outage. Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC0 public domain

A long row of industrial diesel backup generators behind a chain-link security fence with three-strand barbed wire, against a massive concrete data center wall. — FIG. H·3 — The actual scale of ‘backup power.’ A bank of industrial diesel generators behind perimeter security at a hyperscale data center. Each unit is sized to keep one section of the campus running through a grid outage. Cloverleaf has not disclosed how many generators Project Red Clay would house. Source: documentary photography, illustrative reference

Diesel backup generators — the underrated harm.

Most hyperscale data centers maintain large fleets of diesel backup generators on-site to ride through grid outages. The Center for Biological Diversity, petitioning California regulators in April 2026, documents that diesel backup generators emit 200 to 600 times more nitrogen oxides than equivalent natural-gas generation.^H4 NOx is a precursor to ground-level ozone and particulate matter — both linked by the EPA to respiratory disease, asthma, and cardiovascular harm.

During an extended grid outage, a single hyperscale facility can emit its full annual permitted NOx load in a matter of days — the “health earthquake” described by California researchers. Project Red Clay's filing does not specify the size of the on-site generator fleet, the diesel storage capacity, or the emissions modeling under outage conditions.

The economic cost of the health harm.

Fortune, April 2026, citing UC research: data centers are imposing an estimated $25 billion per year in hidden health and environmental damage on the U.S. economy. The same researcher projects respiratory health costs from data centers alone reaching $20 billion per year by 2028.^H5

These costs do not appear on Cloverleaf's pitch slides. They appear on residents' insurance bills, on hospital balance sheets, and in the asthma-rescue prescriptions filled at Hayneville's pharmacies.

The question for the Commission.

The decibel level at the property line, modeled and measured. Compared against the homes within two miles.
The size and capacity of the on-site diesel backup generator fleet.
The NOx and PM2.5 emissions modeled under outage conditions.
The nighttime ambient-light specification at the property line.

The neighbors call it ‘living in hell.’

What residents next door report.

The noise is not a side effect. It's the operating profile.

Diesel backup generators — the underrated harm.

The economic cost of the health harm.

The question for the Commission.

Send the demands. Call your commissioner. Show up.