ESSAY · OCTOBER 2026 · AUGUSTA COUNTY WATCH

Originally published by Augusta County Watch, October 2026. Read it there, and follow their reporting on the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission.

The question facing Augusta County is not whether we use technology. It is whether the county will set meaningful limits on the industrial infrastructure built to support it. We can value digital services without accepting every proposed site, cooling system, or power arrangement. We can welcome tax revenue without treating an applicant’s preferred plan as inevitable.

The August 27 draft of the county’s data center ordinance leaves important decisions open. Its own margin notes ask whether data centers belong in Planned Commerce districts, whether facilities should have megawatt limits, what setbacks should apply, and whether cleaner generators should be mandatory. The public should help make those choices, guided by one principle: accountability. Before approval, we should know what a development will require, what it may change, what limits bind it, and who is responsible if safeguards fail.

This is not about keeping our phones working

Data centers do support email, websites, and streaming. But artificial intelligence is driving today’s wave of construction, and the scale is hard to picture. The average American household uses about 10,500 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. A single facility drawing 100 megawatts around the clock uses as much electricity as roughly 83,000 homes.

What the draft gets right

The ordinance would require a Special Use Permit, with public hearings before the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. It calls for noise, water, environmental, and historic-resource studies, emergency plans, and annual compliance reports. It proposes setbacks of 500 feet at the rear and 1,000 feet at the sides next to land not zoned business or industrial. These are real protections. The problem is that several of the most important ones stop at a study, a definition, or the word "may."

Defining a safeguard is not the same as requiring it

Cooling is the clearest example. The draft carefully defines a closed-loop system that does not consume water, then never requires it. The operating section asks only for "water-efficient" cooling. Residents should not be told this is a closed-loop-only ordinance.

Water has the same gap. Potable groundwater cannot be used for routine cooling, but the draft sets no limit on how much water a facility may use, no drought restrictions, and no process for a neighbor whose well is affected. Those answers belong in the ordinance, not in a dry summer.

Noise is the gap rural residents should watch most closely. The draft allows 65 decibels by day and 60 at night, but the night limit applies only at residential property lines. At a farm or pasture line, there is no night-time limit at all. The draft defines low-frequency hum, the sound data center neighbors most often describe, but sets no standard for it, and post-construction testing is optional.

Look at the whole project

The draft sets no cap on electricity use, acreage, or number of buildings. Its 100-megawatt figure defines a "High Energy Use Facility"; it is not a limit. The public needs to see full buildout, not just phase one, including the transmission lines, substations, and generation a project will need. A community should not judge the building while treating the infrastructure it depends on as someone else’s problem.

What’s at stake for our land and water

In our Valley, the environmental questions are not abstract. Much of our Valley floor sits on karst, limestone honeycombed with sinkholes and underground channels. Virginia Energy warns that sinkholes carry surface water into aquifers with little filtering. Many of us drink from wells and springs fed by that groundwater. Diesel fuel, coolants, and polluted runoff from a large industrial site would have a short path to our taps, and heavy grading and altered drainage can open new sinkholes.

How much water a facility uses matters as much as what might get into it. Evaporative cooling consumes water, and demand peaks in the hottest, driest months, when wells are already lowest. U.S. data centers consumed about 17.5 billion gallons directly in 2023, and federal researchers expect that could double or quadruple by 2028. The draft bans potable groundwater for routine cooling but sets no cap on water use and no drought rules.

This is where we breathe clean air and enjoy the quiet. Large facilities rely on banks of diesel backup generators; one Northern Virginia permit allows up to 10 million gallons of diesel a year. Cooling equipment runs day and night, and its low-frequency hum travels farther and passes through walls more easily than ordinary noise. Wildlife feels it too. Conservationists report that bats abandon noisy areas and that all-night lighting disrupts migration, a real concern for any site near the George Washington National Forest.

The footprint reaches beyond the fence. Site clearing fragments forest and takes farmland out of production for good. New transmission lines bring cleared corridors and towers 135 to 165 feet tall. Battery storage, now common at these sites, can burn with toxic gases, and EPA advises containing the firefighting water so it does not reach soil or streams.

Weigh the benefits honestly

Data centers may bring substantial local tax revenue, and that deserves fair evaluation. But much of the job benefit comes during construction rather than operation, and state incentives carry real costs. Virginia gave up about $1.6 billion in sales tax on data centers in fiscal 2025, and state auditors estimate it gets back about 48 cents for every dollar waived. The draft lets the county hire a fiscal consultant at the applicant’s expense but does not require an independent fiscal analysis. It should.

What happens when something goes wrong?

The draft requires annual reports and allows enforcement and permit revocation. Residents still need practical answers. Who investigates a noise complaint, and who pays for testing? What happens while a well problem is being evaluated? Which changes require another public hearing? At closure, the draft asks only for "decommissioning assumptions," with no plan and no financial guarantee. A promise to clean up later is not money in the bank.

What we should ask for

Before adoption, the county should require closed-loop cooling, set water and noise limits that protect farms as well as homes, require independent review of key studies, cap full buildout, define which changes need a new public hearing, and secure funded responsibility for closure.

This draft is our chance to decide what the community will protect, not merely how it will accommodate an applicant. Watch for the Planning Commission hearing and make your voice heard.

We are all in this together and together we should use this opportunity to protect ourselves before commitments become consequences we will have to live with.