The ten questions
Each item: why it matters, what a good answer cites, and the matching DataCenterSkilledTrades brief or tool.
- 1. Jobs claims: which NAICS, whose payroll, and which dated source?
- 2. Why are facility trades often missing from “data center employment” tables?
- 3. Power and grid: interconnection, who pays upgrades, ratepayer impact?
- 4. Water and cooling: withdrawal vs consumption, source, heat rejection?
- 5. What is physically on site, and which trades get pulled?
- 6. Noise and hours: construction vs operations (qualitative honesty only)?
- 7. Tax abatement vs public infrastructure cost: what is the net public ask?
- 8. Construction vs permanent employment: what is the timeline honesty?
- 9. Emergency response: first-responder training for battery, UPS, and fuel systems?
- 10. How do you verify claims? Primary filings first, then DCST kits.
1. Jobs claims: which NAICS, whose payroll, and which dated source?
Why ask. A jobs number without a NAICS code, employer type, and date is not verifiable. Operator payroll under NAICS 518/518200 is mostly IT and management in published OEWS detail. Construction and specialty-trade contractors who wire, cool, and pipe the campus are usually coded in NAICS 23 / 238 (or utilities), not 518.
What a good answer cites. BLS CES series ID + month/year (e.g. CES5051800001); OEWS release + NAICS; or a named local economic-development / construction filing that states employer type. Separate operator FTEs from GC and specialty-trade contractor headcount.
DCST wire: Jobs outlook · Jobs vs power · Who gets hired
2. Why are facility trades often missing from “data center employment” tables?
Why ask. OEWS May 2025 for NAICS 518200 shows Computer and Mathematical occupations at 41.4% and Management at 16.5%. Installation, Maintenance, and Repair is only 0.5%. Construction and Extraction employment is suppressed (**). Electrician, HVAC/R, lineworker, and pipefitter detail rows are not published for 518200. Citing “data center jobs” from that table as if it were electricians and HVAC techs misreads the table.
What a good answer cites. OEWS May 2025 industry file for 518200 (and an honest “suppressed / not published” where cells are withheld). Related-industry OEWS in construction and utilities NAICS, labeled non-DC-specific, on /roles/.
DCST wire: Jobs outlook · Jobs vs power · Roles
3. Power and grid: interconnection, who pays upgrades, ratepayer impact?
Why ask. National load is real and dated (LBNL: 192 TWh / 4.7% of U.S. electricity in 2024). Your town’s rates and who pays for substation or feeder upgrades do not come from that national total. They come from the utility’s tariff, interconnection study, and (where regulated) PUC docket.
What a good answer cites. Named utility filing or will-serve letter; interconnection study stage or queue language; who pays for upgrades in the filing’s own words; rate treatment / tariff schedule or an honest “not yet determined”; average vs peak load and build-out phase. No invented campus MW or “rates will rise X%.”
DCST wire: Grid-load brief · Jobs vs power
4. Water and cooling: withdrawal vs consumption, source, heat rejection?
Why ask. Viral “X gallons per day” claims are often site-specific, design-maximum, or unsourced. National LBNL figures (~66 billion liters direct on-site consumption in 2023; ~800 billion liters indirect via power plants) are modeled national totals, not a campus number. Liquid cooling moves heat in a closed loop; heat rejection (dry coolers, chillers, or evaporative towers) still sets site water.
What a good answer cites. Dated utility will-serve, permit, or engineer’s basis of design; consumptive vs withdrawn; average vs peak day; potable vs reclaimed vs groundwater; cooling design named; drought-curtailment plan. If the proposer cannot answer, record the number as unknown.
DCST wire: Water brief · Liquid cooling guide · Facility systems
5. What is physically on site, and which trades get pulled?
Why ask. A data center is continuous power, heat rejection, fiber plant, a concrete-and-steel shell, and the people and trucks that install and keep those systems running. That is trades and construction work, not a software release. IT owns compute and network logic. Facility trades own power, cooling, loops, and fiber plant.
What a good answer cites. A systems map naming power path (UPS, switchgear, PDUs, generators), CRAH/chillers and liquid loops, fiber/BICSI, shell, and utility feed. Credentials: state electrical license + NFPA 70E; EPA 608 for refrigerant; BICSI INSTF / TECH (and OR LEA / WA 06 where licensed) for fiber. No invented headcounts.
DCST wire: On-site brief · Who gets hired · Facility systems · Cert checker · Who’s building
6. Noise and hours: construction vs operations (qualitative honesty only)?
Why ask. Construction noise (pile driving, concrete, steel, deliveries, generators during commissioning) differs in character and schedule from operations noise (cooling plant, rooftop or yard equipment, occasional generator tests). Neighbors and HOAs need the distinction stated in plain words. DataCenterSkilledTrades does not invent dB figures. See the full DataCenterSkilledTrades noise brief (workplace vs neighbor rules, generator testing hours, proposal checklist).
What a good answer cites. Proposed construction hours and haul routes; generator test schedule in ops; equipment locations relative to property lines; any AHJ noise ordinance citation the proposer relies on. Treat unsourced “quiet campus” claims as unverified until a named engineering or ordinance reference exists. No invented dB.
DCST wire: Full noise brief: /briefs/noise/. Cross-check hours language against on-site systems map.
7. Tax abatement vs public infrastructure cost: what is the net public ask?
Why ask. Abatements, PILOTs, and incentives can expand the tax base over time and still leave counties paying for roads, water, sewer, fire, EMS, and school impacts up front. Boosters and critics both over-claim when the filing is missing. Fair review needs both the incentive schedule and the infrastructure cost schedule on the same page.
What a good answer cites. Named ordinance, development agreement, or economic-development filing for any abatement or PILOT; term and clawbacks; estimated public infrastructure cost (roads, utilities, public safety) with the agency that owns the estimate; school-district impact letter if applicable. No invented ROI or “X jobs per tax dollar.”
DCST wire: Pair with jobs and grid kits: jobs outlook, grid load. Local filings only for dollars.
8. Construction vs permanent employment: what is the timeline honesty?
Why ask. Peak construction staffing and permanent operator staffing are different ledgers on different calendars. Collapsing them into one “jobs” headline confuses counties and HOAs. Construction peaks and then falls. Ops hiring tracks commissioning and phase build-out.
What a good answer cites. A dated schedule separating construction-phase contractor headcount (or an honest range with source) from ongoing operator FTEs by phase. Employer type named for each. Refuse a single undifferentiated “jobs” number that mixes GC crews with operator payroll.
DCST wire: Jobs outlook · On-site · Who gets hired
9. Emergency response: first-responder training for battery, UPS, and fuel systems?
Why ask. Campuses carry large battery energy storage / UPS plants, fuel for generators, and sometimes refrigerant or coolant inventories. Fire, EMS, and hazmat need training and site familiarization before an incident, not after. This is a public-safety ask, not an anti-project slogan.
What a good answer cites. Named coordination plan with the AHJ (fire/EMS); battery chemistry and location summary suitable for responders; fuel storage volumes and spill response; training schedule offered to local departments; 24/7 site contact. Prefer the proposer’s AHJ-ready packet over a press quote. No invented incident rates.
DCST wire: On-site (power path) · NFPA 70E checklist · Facility systems
10. How do you verify claims? Primary filings first, then DCST kits.
Why ask. Press releases and renderings are not primary sources. Counties and HOAs can insist on dated documents: BLS series for industry employment context, EIA/LBNL for national electricity context, USGS/LBNL for national water context, and local utility, PUC, permit, and economic-development filings for site-specific claims. DataCenterSkilledTrades kits are cite-first honesty pages, not substitutes for local filings.
What a good answer cites. Primary: BLS CES/OEWS, EIA Today in Energy / STEO, LBNL energy-usage reports, USGS water circulars, utility tariffs, PUC dockets, permit applications, development agreements. Secondary cite: this page and the linked DCST briefs below. If a claim has no primary document and no date, record it as unknown.
DCST wire: Jobs outlook · Jobs vs power · Grid load · Water · On-site · Who gets hired · Cert checker