Review of Local and State Initiatives Related to Protection of Our Environment With Focus on Emergence of Large Data Center Projects
The speakers were introduced by Board member Sandi Meadows, who moderated the session before one of the largest audiences for an SSV presentation. Morgan Butler, Senior Attorney, and, Associate Attorney, Christina Libre, began with a brief introduction to the Southern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan legal organization focused on land use, transportation, and other environmental issues. The SELC was founded in Charlottesville in 1986 and has now expanded its work to six southeast states.
The focus of this presentation was on the recent explosive growth of large-scale data centers in Virginia, beginning in Northern Virginia but now spreading elsewhere to include potentially in Albemarle County. They pointed out that data centers, which consist of stacks and stacks of computer servers in massive buildings, provide value to localities, to include tax revenue, but also have negative impacts on the environment and neighboring communities. Data centers require tremendous amounts of electricity as well as enormous quantities of cooling water and generate noise that is continuous and can be unpleasant to nearby residents. The need for on-site diesel generators, ostensibly only for emergency use, adds to the problems.
Localities control the approval of new data centers, but individual approval decisions do not necessarily consider the aggregate impact of many such facilities on communities. Construction of data centers on land already zoned for industry can be by-right, as was recently the case in Albemarle County, or localities can pass ordinances requiring individual review of each proposal. A draft Albemarle ordinance has strong features regarding screening and restrictions on auxiliary power emissions but would designate four County districts that would permit establishment of large-scale data centers by right. The SELC believes this would be a mistake that would not allow public input. Maps were displayed of each of the proposed sites, all of which were shown to be near residential developments.
Questions following the presentation focused on why square footage was used to determine the scale of data centers and whether the cooling water would be recycled. The issue of requiring use of solar and other environmental energy sources was raised and the speakers pointed out that this would not be possible to do on- site and, furthermore, that localities do not have the authority to regulate energy uses. Another raised the interesting question about the potential for technological advances that could render these facilities obsolete and white elephants that localities would have to deal with.