I wonder if there would be more public tolerance if new DCs were targeting land that would otherwise be considered horrible. I'm thinking places with historical industrial pollution unsuitable for other residential or commercial space.

How much complaints would happen if a DC was being built on top of a garbage landfill, bonus points if the DC taps the landfill for its methane to power the DC (many landfills simply burn off the methane in a flare wasting the energy)?

Would the public be against a DC being built on an old industrial complex polluted with mercury and PCBs? (the power question would still need to be answered)

I believe this is fixed now, but how about in historical Flint Michigan where the water being delivered was too polluted with lead to be consumed. A evaporative cooler in a DC wouldn't care about that type of pollution.

How about near productive natural gas fields where a certain amount of excess ethylene is burned, and if there is still too much ethylene, the well production has to be halted. If DCs could take that excess ethylene to burn it, it would make the natural gas field productive again.

In short, instead of targeting GOOD land, GOOD resources, have them target UNDESIRED land, water, and power sources.