To the editor:

I appreciated the Journal-World’s Friday, Sept. 18, coverage of data centers. However, I believe Chad Lawhorn did not include a major concern about the location of data centers: They should not be located on Class 1 or Class 2 soils – the USDA’s top measures of natural fertility and suitability for food production. Class 1 and Class 2 soils are essential, irreplaceable natural resources. Perhaps most important, those soils generally need less fertilizer than other classes of farmland to produce equal amounts of food. In our complicated world, nitrogen fertilizer is becoming increasingly expensive and scarce, and its production and transportation consume huge amounts of fossil fuels. If data centers must exist, they should not be placed on Class 1 or Class 2 soils.

Charles Marsh,

Lawrence