After several residents expressed concerns of air pollution potentially coming from new data centers, the city of Yorkville approved an agreement for consulting services to review the matter.

The $10,000 retainer fee and master agreement with the engineering firm Terracon is for assistance in reviewing air pollution questions. All costs will be covered by the data center developers.

The city previously approved a noise pollution study that accounts for a cumulative noise effect coming from several data centers at once.

“Given the recent public discussion about air quality and emission concerns, the city felt it was reasonable to have a similar arrangement as Soundscape (regarding noise concerns) for air quality and emissions questions,” City Administrator Bart Olson said in city documents.

Terracon has been used by the city for several years on downtown environmental remediation projects, including brownfield initiatives and pollution cleanup.

Olson said Terracon has staff on-site ready to answer questions about air quality.

Pioneer Development LLC, developers of the 1,037 acre Project Cardinal data center project have said very limited air pollution is expected to come from their data centers.

All air quality and emissions regulations for data centers and diesel generators are handled at the state and federal level.

The city does enforce its own noise pollution ordinances. Several residents have expressed concerns that the city’s noise pollution studies did not include the 10 to 20 years of expected construction for the data center warehouses.

The city is exploring more than a dozen data center plans across around 3,000 acres in the Eldamain Corridor.

The city did not say how such large construction sites over such a lengthy period of time would affect air pollution for surrounding residential areas near the city’s new “data center alley.”