By ANI FREEDMAN, InDepthNH.org
At last night’s Bow Planning Board meeting, representatives from the advocacy group Protect New Hampshire from Data Centers brought a petition of 826 registered voters from the Town of Bow requesting the Board of Selectmen hold a special town meeting to vote on the moratorium.
The moratorium would pause data center permitting and construction for at least a year, putting a stop to a potential plan to convert the closed Merrimack Station power plant into a server hub, allowing the town time to research the impacts, costs, and benefits of such a facility.
Primary concerns around a large-scale data center involve noise, waste, water usage and energy usage, explained Bow Selectman Rep. Kip McDaniel.
“If a data center application ever comes towards the town, it will be vetted better than any other town in the state,” McDaniel said at the meeting.
That being said, McDaniel believes that a moratorium should come at the state level, cautioning that as one town puts one in place, it wouldn’t discourage another town from accepting a data center to receive the tax benefits. In turn, neighboring areas would still be impacted by the downstream impacts of that new center despite their own imposed limits.
“It should come at the state level so that every town is on an equal playing field, and you’re not pitting town against town trying to entice development,” McDaniel explained.
Bow resident Judith Attori pointed out her own concerns, however, about slow legislative movement at the state level for such regulations — and it might be too late to stop a data center from entering Bow.
“I would encourage the board to strongly consider a moratorium or open it up to the town, because it’s going to have a big impact on a lot of people,” Attori said. “So perhaps it’s only fair that a majority of the people have input on the subject.”
According to 350NH, Tuesday’s election results showed at least 38 municipalities across the country voted in favor of data center moratoria or restrictions, amid an emerging regional and national movement aimed at slowing the growth of data centers out of concerns for local health, climate, infrastructure, and resources.
For Bow in particular, opposition has arisen in response to confirmed “high-level discussions” with a company about bringing a data center to the town back in September.
There was also an application from Eversource and Granite Shore Power to the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee for a viability study for an up to 350-megawatt interconnection at the Merrimack Station, a coal-fired power plant shut down in September 2025. Granite State Power currently owns the 345-acre plant site.
“If a data center knows there’s a moratorium though, might they be a little slower in approaching the town?” Bow resident Sue Moore asked the planning board. “Having a moratorium is kind of like having a wall. So while we’re still investigating, if we don’t have a moratorium, aren’t we more susceptible to being approached by a data center?”
The board voted unanimously to discuss and refine the ordinance, opening the issue to public discussion in a hearing at the board’s Dec. 3 meeting. In order to move the moratorium forward, the board would have to have an amendment drafted by the first week of January for approval in March.