Did you hear the one about the rancher whose horses kept escaping the corral?

After much thought and consulting experts in the field, he's considering closing the gate.

Wednesday's performance by the Reno City Council reminded me of that ruminating rancher.

More than a year after fumbling a chance to pass restrictions or a moratorium on data center development in the fastest-warming community in the nation, on Earth Day the council once again heard from a wide array of concerned residents on a subject many clearly considered of grave importance. On April 22, the council mustered the gumption to vote unanimously in favor of studying and revising its data center regulations.

But a moratorium? Whoa, pardner. Not so fast.

In February 2025, the council convened and the public gathered to express strong concerns about the lack of oversight of data center development in the state and, not surprisingly, their own backyards. Native American water defenders were joined by conservation groups and a plethora of other concerned residents. Their call for a data center moratorium to give the city time to study the heated issue was rendered moot by a narrow vote despite nearly unanimous opposition from the public.

As evidenced by Wednesday's meeting, the passage of time hasn't dampened opposition to the city's move toward data center development. If anything, it's grown stronger and is bolstered by more damning statistics and anecdotes about the potential for calamity during the great data center gold rush.

It would be a mistake for public officials to doubt the depth of the sincerity and the growing concern behind the comments of those who turned out — again — to speak out against what many perceive as an existential threat to their community.

Among those sincere speakers was longtime Reno resident Bill Miller, a gaunt fellow who said he was just returning from a "six-month sabbatical" due to ongoing cancer treatment. The disease was on his mind and in his metaphors.

"These data centers are not unlike cancer, and they try to devour local resources and put the host's viability in jeopardy," Miller said. "Their only concern is their own growth and well-being. If left unchecked, they will deplete the host's ability to flourish. And like cancer, they don't care. And also like cancer, they need us, we don't need them. And it's time to act like it."

Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe member Dwight George smiled at the irony of a meeting of such importance landing on Earth Day, a day intended to honor the birth of the modern environmental movement.

"On today, Earth Day, and as a Native every day, I thought it was incredibly important for people to speak out and protect the only land we have," he said. "This land … deserves to be cared for and valued for more than what can only be taken from it. … Like so many times before, you may be voting for something presently, but we are talking about the future for so many. There is no reason to go into it so blindly."

Invoking his extended family and child, and noting the council's acknowledgment of the city's notoriety as the nation's emerging climate hot spot, he used two words to describe any further inaction by the elected decision-makers: irresponsible and irredeemable.

Laura Fallon illuminated what she considers the false economic promise of courting data centers, which employ few workers after construction and enjoy outsize tax incentives most other businesses can only envy. Reno, she said, risks losing its reputation as a magnet for retirees and live-entertainment enthusiasts.

"If data center development exacerbates our heat waves, pollutes our air quality, increases our utility rates, no matter what the state income tax is, do you think Nevada will continue to be a place that folks move to in the same numbers for that income?" she asked.

With more than 40 data centers either operating or under construction in Northern Nevada, any talk of a moratorium would need to be put between quotation marks. Nevada's proximity to tech mecca Silicon Valley, its abundance of land, audacious tax incentives and available energy make it almost ideal for major data center development. With water scarce in the south, that means most of the pressure to grow is happening in the north with its comparatively generous water supply.

But as Northern Nevadans know well, that bountiful supply is illusory and threatened by dwindling snowpacks and rainfall, the region's burgeoning population and the very real increased heat due to human-caused climate change.

Critics of unchecked development offered examples not only from arid Nevada, but from communities across the nation. Assurances of environmental friendliness have been fractured by evidence of gargantuan water consumption, skyrocketing residential utility increases and toxic wastewater. 

Northern Nevada residents aren't alone in their alarm. A Consumer Reports survey found 78 percent of adults were concerned about the developments. Some large artificial intelligence-focused data centers consume enough electricity to power 100,000 homes.

But those aren't hidden facts. They shouldn't take much time for the city to round up. As Reno's Ward 4 Councilwoman Meghan Ebert, a strong skeptic of data center development, told a reporter following a regional meeting on the subject in October, "We should learn from other communities' mistakes and try to avoid making them."

Wednesday's vote wasn't a tough call politically, but will it result in a wake-up call for the city?

It's time to check the gate before the best of Reno's pretty ponies gallop over the distant hills.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family's Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.