The POWER Act Has Critical Gaps —
Noise, Water & Verification
April 24 Deadline.

Subject: Urgent: Please Strengthen the POWER Act — Aquifer Protection, Noise Standards, Acoustic Enclosures, and Independent Verification Dear [Rep. Gabel / Sen. Villivalam], I am an Illinois resident writing with urgent concerns about the POWER Act (SB4016/HB5513) as it is currently written. I support the bill's goals, but I believe it has four critical gaps that must be addressed before it passes this spring — particularly as it relates to the 560-acre Endeavour Energy data center recently approved in DeKalb, Illinois. In December 2025, the DeKalb City Council unanimously approved this project less than one month after it was made public, over the objections of dozens of residents who packed a standing-room-only public hearing. The mayor has since refused to disclose the community benefits agreement terms even to state legislators — something you, Rep. Gabel, have already called out by name. The residents of DeKalb deserve the protections below before construction begins in 2027. --- 1. EXPLICIT PROHIBITION ON AQUIFER EXTRACTION — NOT JUST REPORTING DeKalb draws its drinking water from underground aquifers directly below the city — the Troy Valley Aquifer and the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer. The 560-acre data center site sits in this same region. Endeavour Energy claims their ThermalWorks cooling system is "waterless" — but this claim comes entirely from their own marketing materials. No independent engineer has verified it. More broadly, the Mahomet Aquifer — the EPA-designated sole-source drinking water supply for nearly 1 million Illinois residents across 14 counties — supplies approximately 100 million gallons of water per day. The water within it is between 3,000 and 10,000 years old and cannot be replaced on any human timeline. While SB4004 aims to protect the Mahomet, the POWER Act — the primary vehicle for statewide data center regulation — currently lacks a matching, ironclad extraction ban. Please do not let the POWER Act become a weaker alternative to SB4004. Incorporate the strict extraction bans from SB4004 into the POWER Act so Illinois has one gold-standard law for the whole state. Additionally, data center construction drives deep structural pylons into the ground. If those pylons pierce the protective clay confining layer above an aquifer, they create a permanent pathway for surface contaminants to leak directly into the water supply. The bill must explicitly ban structural pylons that penetrate aquifer confining layers. --- 2. MANDATORY INDEPENDENT THIRD-PARTY ENGINEERING VERIFICATION Endeavour Energy's "waterless" cooling claim is unverified by anyone other than the company itself. Their ThermalWorks technology is relatively new and unproven at a 560-acre scale. Dry cooling systems perform very differently in Illinois summer heat than in moderate climates — and no independent licensed engineer has certified that this technology will perform as claimed at this specific site. The POWER Act must require that before any construction permit is issued, an independent licensed engineer with no financial relationship to the company certifies in writing that the proposed cooling technology will perform as claimed under local climate conditions. Independent verification before the fact is protection. Self-reported data after the fact is not. --- 3. MANDATORY ACOUSTIC ENCLOSURES AND SOUND BARRIERS — REQUIRED BEFORE OPENING The data center industry already has proven, commercially available solutions for containing noise — including acoustic steel enclosures around cooling equipment, sound-absorbing louvre walls that allow airflow while blocking noise, fan-mounted silencers, earth berms, and sound barrier walls along residential property lines. These are not experimental. They exist, they work, and companies know how to install them. The reason they are rarely used is simple: they cost money, and without a legal requirement, companies choose not to install them. Residents in Aurora and across the country describe the constant noise as "white noise on steroids" — causing insomnia, migraines, and cardiovascular stress. The POWER Act must require: - Acoustic enclosures on all outdoor cooling equipment and generators, installed before the facility opens - Earth berms and sound barrier walls along any property line facing residential areas, with specifications determined by an independent acoustical engineer - An acoustic design plan approved by an independent licensed acoustical engineer as part of the permitting process --- 4. ENFORCEABLE NOISE STANDARDS WITH RESIDENT LEGAL STANDING The POWER Act must also include ongoing enforceable noise standards. Most local noise ordinances measure A-weighted decibels (dBA), which mimics typical human hearing — but data centers produce low-frequency infrasound vibrations that travel through walls and are responsible for the migraines, insomnia, and cardiovascular stress that residents near data centers consistently report. Standard dBA measurements completely miss this. The bill must mandate C-weighted (dBC) noise limits specifically to capture these low-frequency vibrations that standard ordinances ignore. The POWER Act must also include: - Enforceable dBC limits measured at residential property lines, not the facility fence - Independent noise monitoring on a continuous basis, not self-reported by the company - Residents' legal right to take action when limits are violated - Penalties with real consequences — not just warnings --- The residents of DeKalb showed up in a snowstorm, spoke for two and a half hours, raised every one of these concerns, and were ignored. The committee deadline for this bill is April 24, 2026 — days away. That is the last real window to add these protections for DeKalb's neighboring homes and the nearly 1 million Illinois residents who depend on the Mahomet Aquifer. The solutions exist. The technology exists. The industry knows how to do all of this. They just will not do it unless the law requires them to. Illinois aquifers are thousands of years old. Once contaminated or depleted, there is no alternative. No amount of tax revenue is worth that. Thank you for your leadership. Sincerely, [Your Name] [Your City, IL] [Your Phone or Email]