By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – Dinilawigi (Tribal Council) has approved a moratorium on data centers within the lands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). They passed Ord. No. 158 (2026) during the regular Dinilawigi session on Thursday, May 7 by a vote of 11-0 with Tutiyi/Tsalagi Gadugi (Snowbird/Cherokee County) Rep. Michael Smoker being absent.
Ord. No. 158 was submitted by Kolanvyi (Big Cove) Rep. Lavita Hill, Kolanvyi Rep. Venita Wolfe, Aniwodihi (Painttown) Rep. Shannon Swimmer, and Elawodi (Yellowhill) Rep. Shennelle Feather.
The whereas section of the legislation states in part, “High impact digital infrastructure facilities (herein referred to as data centers), present a clear and present danger to the lands and people of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians; and these facilities have often been forced on rural areas in western North Carolina and have made the quality of life considerably worse for those who live nearby them.”
It continues, “These facilities require an enormous amount of water to operate, and we recognized that our water is sacred and should not be used for this purpose; and it is well documented that these facilities create a humming sound which causes nearby residents to develop health problems of both a physical and mental variety.”
The ordinance calls for the moratorium to “remain in effect indefinitely”.
During Thursday’s discussion, Rep. Feather commented, “My vote is for Yellowhill. I don’t want a big data center in Yellowhill, and my Yellowhill constituents also don’t want a data center built in Yellowhill. They’re (data centers) loud. They take a lot of energy. They raise our power bills even more. Also, you cannot put polluted water back out there. Our biggest resource is water. I attended a conference in December in South Dakota, and they did a presentation on data centers. It was called ‘Walleye or AI’. Yesterday, we just had some awesome youth fishermen here that we acknowledged. How would we like it if we didn’t have the water for them to fish in anymore or fish that live in it?”
She added, “I think it goes right in line with our cultural understanding and beliefs, and that is where I stand. I believe if we’re not supporting this (moratorium), then we’re going against who we are as Indigenous people and Cherokee people and our community and not protecting our assets within our natural resources.”
The Eastern Cherokee Organization, a grassroots organization comprised of members of the EBCI, hosted a Data Center Town Hall to bring awareness of the impacts that the centers can have on a community. The event was held in collaboration with the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Bigwitch Indian Wisdom Initiative on Saturday, April 25 at the Yellowhill Activity Center in Cherokee, N.C.
You can view this meeting in its entirety at the Cherokee One Feather YouTube Channel here.
During the event, information was distributed from Honor the Earth, an Indigenous non-profit centered on environmental issues. One of the fact sheets states, “A hyperscale data center is a massive facility built to house the machines that power artificial intelligence (AI), store digital data, and support cryptocurrency. These centers can consume as much water and power as entire towns and cities.”
Jordan Harmon, a Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen who serves as the policy specialist for the Indigenous Environmental Network, was one of three guest speakers at the April 25 meeting. She spoke about water quality issues. “You’ll hear a lot about ‘water conservation’, ‘closed-loop systems’, and ‘water-positive data centers’. That’s all just language they’re using to manipulate how you view the data center. Even with systems that, so-called ‘conserve water’, they have to add chemicals for the cooling agent. Some of those chemicals are PFAs, which are the forever chemicals.”
Cheyenna “Chey” Morgan, a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians with Oglala Lakota heritage who serves as the Stop Data Colonialism coalition coordinator, was another guest speaker and commented, “You can’t recycle polluted water. On top of the amount of PFAs and chemicals that they put in that will not be removed from this system, you can’t restore watersheds and also remove the pollution at the same time when one is actively polluting the systems.”
Rep. Wolfe also spoke during that meeting noting, “We are very passionate about working for our people and protecting our people, and our land, and all the resources that we have in this beautiful area.
My concern, also, is our language and keeping our language pure and alive. We’ll have that conversation because I think that’s going to come up next to make sure that we, like other tribal nations are not letting ChatGPT take over our language, and pollute it, and, basically ruin and kill it.”
Mary “Missy” Crowe, an EBCI tribal elder from Elawodi (Yellowhill), is a project coordinator and southeast regional representative for the Indigenous Environmental Network. At the April 25 meeting, she noted, “At the end of the day, we all need clean water, and we all need clean air, and we all need clean and healthy food.”
