Big Data Center Corporations - A Small Group of Landowners = Big Payday. The Losers: PWC Families

 

 

Data Centers and Environmental Justice in PWC

 

According to the EPA website on Environmental Justice:

 

“Fair treatment means no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, governmental and commercial operations or policies.”

 

In the span of about a year, the PW Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) has burdened the residents of Gainesville/Bristow/Haymarket with an extremely disproportionate burden of data centers approved close to homes and schools. There are currently about 40 data centers approvals in this area, and if the Devlin Technology Park which passed Planning Commission moves forward, it will be closer to about 50. 

 

In addition, if the BOCS approves the PW Digital Gateway CPA in Fall 2022, it would allow zoning for another 90 data centers and would basically triple the already severe environmental injustice for this community.

 

The injustice being perpetrated on the Gainesville community is even more troublesome given that Gainesville District Supervisor Candland --who represents the district most heavily impacted by data center zoning resolutions -- has been recused from voting on the upcoming the PW Digital Gateway CPA resolution AND is silent (or silenced) regarding all data center related environmental problems that will impact his constituents. As a result of this, plus the relentless speed of these zoning approvals, very few citizens in the most impacted area are even aware of the magnitude of environmental disruption that will affect their community.

 

At-Large Supervisor Chair Wheeler has not only not stepped in to inform the citizens of Supervisor Candland’s district of the environmental problems heading their way, but she appears to have played an active leadership role in driving the data center approval train as fast as possible.  On August 2, 2022, she would not even a consider a 6 to 12-month delay of the PW Digital Gateway CPA vote in order to complete a water quality safety study prior to approval of the largest land change in this area in decades.

 

For all intents and purposes,  the speed of these approvals is an essential component as it assures the BOCS and data center developers that by the time the community becomes aware of the environmental disaster heading their way, it will be too late to stop. This is intentional environmental injustice.

 

Because these approvals have occurred parcel by parcel at alarming speed, very few citizens are aware of what has been zoned in Gainesville/Haymarket/Bristow residential areas. There has been no attempt by any politician to send an email, letter or organize a town hall to inform the community of the massive environmental burden these approvals will have on this community.  There have been no maps or charts that show the holistic impact of so many data center campuses on this residential area.

 

It is shocking that all of these approvals are occurring at lightning speed before even the first building of the first large data center campus is completed. There will be no chance for this community to assess environmental impact before heading into what could very well be an environmental abyss.

 

The first projects seeking zoning for the PW Digital Gateway CPA are Compass and QTS.  Each will contain multiple high-rise buildings, and each will have about the square footage of the Pentagon. All this would be built out next to a National Park and a residential community already heavily impacted by the zoning of 15 data centers within close proximity, and all zoned within the past 12 months.

 

This amount of data center zoning in one community, at this rate of speed, is uncharted territory and constitutes massive environmental injustice for the citizens of Gainesville/Haymarket/Bristow.