And Follow-Up on Fredericksburg Data Center Forum
[From “Data Centers Are Destroying Virginia’s Countryside — Even in Places That Have No Data Centers,” in the the D.C.-area publication NOTUS.]
By Dana Milbank, NOTUS
The editors sent me on a hardship assignment this week. I went paddling on the James River in central Virginia.
And that wasn’t the worst of it. I had to visit a particularly beautiful section called Seven Islands, in rural Fluvanna County, much of it protected by private conservation easements and a nearby state wildlife management area.
The water rippled around rocks and under the branches of towering sycamores. Smallmouth bass scattered when my canoe approached—this was likely a favorite fishing ground of the Monacan people for thousands of years—and a red fox flushed from the tall grass. An American goldfinch called, and a spicebush swallowtail butterfly alighted on its eponymous plant, now bursting with fragrant, red berries. Pawpaws drooped under the weight of their ripening fruit.
“You’re floating down the river and it’s forest in every direction,” said Vic Sorrell, a retired school principal who, with his friends, bought 390 acres here over the years. “This area is as far away from people as you can get in Fluvanna County, and we considered ourselves safe.”
After a pause, he added, bitterly: “Nowhere is safe.”
Read the rest of Dana Milbank’s column HERE. [You may have to register to access, but it’s free.]
Meanwhile, in Fredericksburg:
Data Center Forum Brings Crowd to Downtown Library
By Jeff Eastland, ADVANCE CONTRIBUTOR
On Thursday August 20, a standing room crowd of approximately 150 people gathered for a data center forum at the downtown library in Fredericksburg. Titled “Data Center Impacts in Virginia,” the event was hosted by the FXBG Neighborhood Coalition, the Rappahannock Group Sierra Club, and the Climate Reality Project.
The forum was moderated by Ranjit Singh, associate professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Mary Washington. Singh is a noted Environmental and Nature Writer on his Substack No Lines in Nature and as environmental columnist for The FXBG Advance. He also teaches a seminar on “Politics and the Environment” at the university.
Forum panelists included Delegate Joshua Cole, who represents parts of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties and the city of Fredericksburg in the 65th District. Cole acknowledged that he was still new to the data center conversation— “about 90 percent there”—unlike many of his colleagues in the legislature, who he said seem to think they know more than their active constituents about data centers.
Also on the panel was a person many see as the true leader of the data center opposition movement, Elena Schlossberg, director of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County. Schlossberg emerged 12 years ago as one of the first persons to speak out against the rampant proliferation of data centers in Northern Virginia when she formed the Coalition in 2014. The Coalition’s relentless and dogged opposition to the Prince William Digital Gateway, a proposed data center campus that would have been the largest in the world—located right next to the Bull Run/Manassas Civil War Battlefield Park—resulted in the defeat of the project on a technicality earlier this year, after it had already been approved.
Schlossberg discussed a number of problems now coming to light about data centers, including the electric load, transmission lines, and water use. She also focused on how Dominion Energy is what she called “out of control,” in reference to the proposed merger of Next Era and Dominion which would create the largest utility company in the world.
The third member of the panel was Tim Cywinski, director of Communications for the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, who focused on problems with development in rural areas of Virginia, particularly environmental racism where large projects are often built on top of minority neighborhoods.
Cywinski discussed the number of diesel generators used by data centers in Virginia14,000, of which 9,000 are the dirtier Tier 2 type—and the lack of standards and enforcement. He also talked about discharge by data centers of chemicals into lakes and watersheds, a practice known as “blowdown.”
Also represented were several advocacy groups who set up tables containing flyers and information, including the Fredericksburg chapter of the NAACP, ProtectStafford, the Rappahannock Chapter of the Sierra Club, the recently formed group SafeguardSpotsy, and Citizens 4 Data Transparency—joining the 70 percent of Americans who oppose data centers, according to recent polling.
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Jeff Eastland is a retired antique dealer, lifetime activist and writer, and one-time Environmental Studies major. He lives on a seven-acre farm in farm that is a certified Wildlife Habitat in Stafford, Virginia. You can find an earlier version of this essay on his substack HERE.
