by Freeda Cathcart, District Director representing Roanoke City on the Blue Ridge Soil and Water Conservation Board
Agriculture is Virginia’s largest private industry. Immigrants are attracted to Virginia because we are the land of opportunity based on the wealth of our natural resources. It’s our responsibility for future generations to protect our resources. The proliferation of the data centers using out-dated technology presents an existential threat to our Commonwealth’s clean water supply and our agriculture industry.
According to the Virginia Farm Bureau, agriculture and forestry are the foundation for Virginia’s economy:
“The industry has an economic impact of $82.3 billion annually and provides more than 381,800 jobs in the commonwealth. The industries of agriculture and forestry together have a total economic impact of $105 billion and provide more than 490,000 jobs in the commonwealth. Every job in agriculture and forestry supports 1.6 jobs elsewhere in Virginia’s economy. According to a 2021 economic impact study, production agriculture employs nearly 54,000 farmers and workers in Virginia and generates approximately $3.8 billion in total output.”
Rural county governments are being wooed by slick promotions of easy revenue by the data center industry while omitting crucial information about the impacts to their economy and environment. Often this happens under the cloak of secrecy with the locality working with the company to claim proprietary and economic development that results in NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). This prevents public hearings for the communities to weigh in with valid concerns BEFORE commitments are made and contracts are signed.
The planned Google AI mega data center in Botetourt County took their community and region by surprise. A local newspaper, the Roanoke Rambler, had to sue to get the government to release the information on the impact to water supply in accordance with a FOIA request. People were shocked to learn that the data center is projected to use between 2 million to 8 million gallons of water per day, that’s 7 to 30 times more than the top customer for the local utility!
Botetourt County belongs to the Western Virginia Water Authority who had refused to fulfill the FOIA request to disclose how much water the data center would use. The judge made it clear that the public has “an overwhelming interest” in how their water supply is managed. Judge Ciaffone said:
“There are few resources more precious than water… Public participation in the data center discussion on a local level is especially critical, given that this is an industry still in its adolescence, with virtually no state-wide regulations…. For the public to be given information on water usage when the ink is dry on the deal is useless,… There is no question that a data center in Botetourt County will provide an economic benefit to the community, and well beyond. However, the citizens who want to examine all aspects of the proposal before the project is finalized seek to participate exactly as FOIA envisions.”
Supposedly the water will initially come from the Water Authority’s Carvins Cove reservoir and Google has agreed to pay $300 million for a new water source. Many local landowners are concerned about where that new water source might be, how it would affect their wells and impact their agriculture businesses.
The water source implications for the mega center impacts more than Botetourt County. The City of Roanoke, the Counties of Roanoke, Franklin and Botetourt and the Towns of Boones Mill, Iron Gate and Vinton are all served by the Western Virginia Water Authority. It’s unacceptable that the people and businesses in these localities were denied the ability to weigh in on the project before the contracts were signed.
The new bill (HB 496) passed but it won’t become law until July 1, 2027. It requires water utilities to provide reports of water usage to the State Water Control Board. While that provides public disclosure, it doesn’t provide the immediate protection that our clean needs. According to the DEQ, most of Virginia is under a drought “warning”. The next and final level is “emergency”.
There has been no public discussions about the costs and benefits of requiring data centers to use the most up-to-date technology such as a zero-water evaporation cooling design that recycles water through a closed loop system or other methods to reduce the strain on the local water supply. Another concern is how much electricity data centers use and their impact on the grid that is causing the cost of electricity to increase for all customers.
The motivation to quickly build AI data centers is because the U.S. is supposedly losing in the AI development race with China. However China has always been behind the US when it comes to protecting our natural resources: air, water and land.
China’s Ministry of Water Resources reports that 60 percent of China’s cities face water shortages. In rural sectors, an estimated 500 million residents are exposed to contaminated drinking water. There’s a reason China relies on other countries to feed their people.
Finland has the world’s most pristine water supply. When the ambassador of Finland met with a Saudi Arabian official, the Saudi Arabian said that he would trade all of his country’s oil for Finland’s water.
Finland has been using innovation, taxes and regulations to make data centers use the most up-to-date solutions when building data centers. Some data centers are buried underground and utilize the heat produced to heat hundreds of thousands of homes. Other data centers use sea water to cool their systems.
Common sense dictates that the Virginia General Assembly needs to create and implement regulations for out-dated-technology data centers. The regulations need to be based on a comprehensive assessment on the impacts to our economy and environment. Until new regulations can be implemented, Virginia needs to take immediate action to protect our water. We must incentivize the owners of the out-dated data centers to upgrade to the new technology that eliminates high water usage and is energy efficient.
It’s time to eliminate any tax credits for data centers that are harming our economy and environment. It’s imperative to preserve our ability to grow food and provide water for our communities. Water is a priceless resource that is necessary for human survival.
Please use this link to contact the General Assembly Budget Conference Committee to ask them to eliminate the tax credit for out-dated-technology data centers.
