LABRADOR CITY, N.L. — There’s a lot of buzz online lately about a data centre in Labrador City.
People who live near the building on Avalon Drive have been complaining about the sound produced by the large number of fans since the business, run by Great North Data (GND), set up shop a few years ago.
Ann Marie Saunders, who lives over a kilometer away from the business, posted a video online to illustrate how loud the noise is even as far away as she lives. It garnered a lot of comments from others in the area who also say the noise is disruptive.
Saunders said she understands when the weather starts to warm up the fans in the building will be louder and thinks more should be done to mitigate the sound.
“I have to sleep with earplugs,” she said. “Kids have to yell at each other when outside playing, it’s a bit much.”
Saunders said she doesn’t understand why the business was allowed to set up so close to a residential area. GND purchased the homes of some of the closest neighbours in the past, but Saunders said it travels further than those homes. She also thought the location was meant to be temporary and doesn’t understand why it’s still there.
“I don’t understand why there’s this big commercial business with residential areas all around it,” she said. “I don’t know why it was approved in the first place.”
“I don’t understand why there’s this big commercial business with residential areas all around it." — Ann Marie Saunders
There are a number of businesses that rely on walking traffic in the summer nearby, she said, and this has to have an impact on them.
James Goodwin, CEO of GND, said he understands why residents are frustrated by the noise and said it will be mitigated in the coming weeks.
“We’re going to be changing out the fans at the beginning of July and that will be a big difference,” he said. “Currently there’s low frequency fans in there and we’re swapping them out with high frequency.”
He said when they set up the business they weren’t aware of the difference the fans would create, in terms of ambient noise, and chalks it up to inexperience.
“We know better now, the building in Goose Bay is using the fans that produce a higher frequency sound and you can barely hear anything a hundred yards away.”
Goodwin compared the way the sound travels to the train in Labrador City, which you can feel in most parts of town.
In terms of moving locations, he said the plan is still to move to another location, once a number of factors get resolved. When they looked to set up shop in Labrador City initially there were only two buildings available that met their requirements, in terms of space and power availability, Goodwin said.
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