The Jackson City Council voted 5-2 on August 11 to explore where data centers could be built in the capital city. The nonbinding resolution, authored by Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes, names land around Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport as a candidate and points to property near Hawkins Field and the city landfill. It does not lift the 183-day moratorium the council passed on July 14, which took effect this month. But it signals that city leaders remain open to an industry that residents packed public meetings to oppose.

The push sits on top of a contradiction that the city's own hired consultants flagged months ago. In December, the city received a roughly 60-page memo from Thomas Consulting Group laying out best practices for attracting data centers and a customized evaluation rubric. WLBT obtained the documents through an open records request. The memo warns that data centers carry low job creation and high infrastructure impact, and that the tradeoff must be carefully balanced in a system already under strain.

Water is the crux. The consultants wrote that water is one of the most consequential issues for data centers and the one most directly connected to Jackson's vulnerabilities. They cautioned that introducing a high-demand industrial user without fully financed upgrades can push systems toward failure. The city's water system is not merely strained. It is under the control of a federal receiver, Interim Third-Party Manager Ted Henifin, whose JXN Water utility has been raising rates to keep the system solvent.

The numbers from a neighboring county illustrate the scale. In Ridgeland, Amazon Web Services is building a multibillion-dollar data center that will use an estimated 91 million gallons of water a year. As part of that deal, Ridgeland required AWS to invest roughly $63 million in public infrastructure, including $30 million in the city's water system and $7 million for sewer upgrades, according to WLBT. Jackson's consultants recommended the city adopt per-megawatt and per-gallon impact fees tied to energy and water intensity, with escalation over time.

The consultants also recommended Jackson require developers to fund new water and sewer lines and invest in municipal-scale reuse systems. They advised the city to adopt a data center rubric within six months of receiving the memo and to update its zoning ordinance to define data centers as a conditional use linked to infrastructure impact thresholds. It is unclear whether the city has adopted the rubric or developed the community benefits agreement the memo calls for.

The council's own debate reflects the split. Stokes, who sponsored the resolution, argued the city needs the tax revenue. We need some help with our budget, he said, pointing to closed swimming pools, libraries and community centers. Mayor John Horhn said after the meeting that he is an advocate for data centers and does not believe the danger to health is as pronounced as has been presented.

Ward 4 Councilman Brian Grizzell, who authored the moratorium ordinance and voted against the resolution, pushed back on the revenue promises. Nobody has yet to show me a payout, he said. We're operating actually right now on a bunch of promises. Grizzell also disputed Stokes' claim that few homes sit near Hawkins Field, noting that the Northwest Hills Terrace neighborhood sits at the end of one of its runways.

The moratorium itself grew out of a specific project. New Jersey-based Saxum Investment Group sought to rezone roughly 190 acres near Forest Avenue and Interstate 220 for a data center, a proposal that later expanded to about 230 acres. Residents turned out in large numbers against it, and Saxum asked the planning board to postpone the rezoning request earlier this year. The company has not brought the proposal back or publicly announced its next steps.

The water question has already reached the federal court that oversees the city's water system. On July 20, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate scheduled a status conference to determine how a data center would impact Jackson's water, after WLBT reported the city had been looking at Lake Hico as a potential hyperscale site. The city said no project had been approved and called the Lake Hico talks very premature.

The council is now drafting a data center ordinance, and City Attorney Drew Martin told members this week that no new draft is anywhere near ready to be brought forward. A public hearing will likely be needed once budget hearings wrap up. The question that hangs over the process is the one the consultants put in writing: how does a city whose water system is under federal control reconcile courting an industry whose defining input is water, without first securing the upgrades that make it safe?