Residents of a Stillwater neighborhood say data center construction is killing their pond
STILLWATER, Okla. (KFOR) — A Google data center being built in Stillwater is alarming an entire neighborhood nearby.
Doris Al-Harake is the homeowners association president of Parkview Estates in Stillwater. She said that over a week ago, residents started to notice troubling changes at the pond near the neighborhood's front entrance.
'The construction across the street, which will be the Stillwater's new Google data center, it killed all of our fish. Like I said, hundreds of fish,' said Al-Harake.
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Residents in the neighborhood said they've never seen the pond in its current state.
'Parkview has a long-standing reputation of being fun and festive, and we do a lot of events out here, and so now this is just sad,' said Jennifer Jalbert, a neighbor.
Stillwater city officials said that with the recent rainfall, the red clay soil is solely to blame.
'Some of the things we've done is installation of additional silt fencing,' said Dawn Dodson, City of Stillwater Chief Public Affairs Officer. 'Developing an earthen berm on that east of the silt fence to act as additional containment.'
Dodson said this is a temporary problem.
'We definitely believe that it will improve,' said Dodson.
Al-Harake said the neighborhood deserves better.
'We didn't cause this, and we shouldn't have to pay for it. We have residents out here picking up dead fish,' said Al-Harake.
The Department of Environmental Quality said they are now investigating and should have more information later this week.
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