HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-09-02 Catarina Zaragoza Support Testimony
From: Catarina Z
To: Planning WPC Testimony
Subject: In Strong Support of Bill 170
Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2026 6:23:12 PM
Dear Chair and Commission members,
Please excuse the tardiness of my submission, but I felt it imperative to share my input as an
affected community member, and I hope you will consider it.
My name is Catarina Zaragoza, I live in the ahupuaʻa of Waiākea, where Waiākea stream is my nearest wai, and I work in the ahupuaʻa of Kūkūau. I am writing in strong support of Bill
170. As large data centers continue to multiply across the United States, we are already witnessing the short-term impacts of these sites on the surrounding communities. Towns and
cities where these centers have developed are fighting those same centers for water and power, while paying more for both. Here in Hawaiʻi, we already face some of the highest electricity
costs, all of which have spiked due to the recent war in Iran. The corporations that own these centers refuse to be accountable for, or to help correct, environmental hazards like the recent
contamination of the water supply by a Meta data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Communities are fighting these developments tooth and nail for a reason. Please support this
bill so Hawaiʻi Country doesnʻt become another casualty of these massive corporations' greedy, dangerous pursuits. We cannot afford to foot their bill.
Our resources as an island community are limited and stretched thin enough as it is. Selling
our ʻāina and precious wai to these extractive technologies that will ultimately cost all of us far more than we stand to gain is dangerous and short-sighted. So often, the damages done by this
type of industrial processing cannot be undone, or take enormous effort and expense on behalf of those affected, never by the culprits. We are still clawing our way back from the plantation
era and itʻs affecs on our soil, water, and health.
I would also ask that the Windward Planning Commission to recommend one additional strengthening change before sending it back to the County Council. The original Bill 170
language uses subjective phrases like "industrial-scale operation" and "beyond that typically accessory or incidental to office, commercial, or public institutional uses" that a well-
resourced developer's attorney can argue around. The definition below replaces that subjectivity with objective physical criteria and a clear 20 megawatt threshold that cannot be
disputed.
Cooling, power, and support infrastructure, including but not limited to servers, network equipment and appliances, telecommunications equipment, data storage systems, systems for
monitoring and managing infrastructure performance, environmental controls, fire protection systems, security systems, electrical substations, generators, and redundant power supplies;
and which requires or is designed to require 20 megawatts or more of electrical capacity at full build-out. This definition includes a single facility and any campus of multiple facilities on
contiguous or adjacent parcels under common ownership or control whose combined electrical demand meets or exceeds 20 megawatts. This term includes facilities commonly described as
large-scale, hyperscale, neocloud, and artificial intelligence data centers and colocation campuses. This term does not include telecommunications facilities regulated under Section
25-4-12, hospital or government data systems, university educational and research facilities, or business offices in which servers are incidental to the primary use."
Our island's closed water system, fossil-fuel-dependent grid, and already strained
infrastructure cannot support hyperscale data centers. Please recommend the strongest possible version of this bill to the County Council.
Me ka oiaʻiʻo,
Catarina Zaragoza Waiākea, Hilo