Being in the cloud is cloudy

The American Battlefield Trust is appealing a decision by the Circuit Court of Prince William County that dismissed its lawsuit against the county and tech companies planning to build the world’s largest data center complex next to Manassas National Battlefield. The lawsuit, filed by the Trust alongside citizen plaintiffs, challenges the proposal to cover 1,750 historic acres with sprawling data centers and infrastructure. You can read their full statement here.

We are catching glimmers of progress, however. Last month, the Planning Commission delayed the Stack proposals to allow representatives to meet with Joann Gaskins and work toward a respectful agreement on preserving the cemetery and honoring the historical significance of the land. You can read Joann Gaskins' op-ed here.

Additionally, the Bristow Battlefield data center proposal has been deferred for review. This project falls outside the county’s data center overlay district and, if approved, would contribute to an already massive cluster of eight Stack Infrastructure data centers along Hornbaker and Linton Hall Roads. Approval would lead to ten data centers tightly concentrated near the Regency Apartment Homes on Hornbaker Road, just north and west of the Target shopping center on Nokesville Road.

Transparency Gains: Monitoring Air Quality

In a win for public transparency, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has launched a webpage where residents can search for issued air permits for data centers. As of November 12, the site lists 177 air permits. According to analysis by the Virginia Mercury, 155 of these permits are in Northern Virginia, with Prince William County holding 26. Loudoun County leads with 85 permits, followed by Fairfax County with 34. What would happen to air quality if all these generators needed to run simultaneously? You can read the Virginia Mercury article here.

Insights from the Data Center Conference

On November 6-7, PWCA attended a data center conference hosted by Data Center Dynamics in Leesburg, Va. Ashley Studholme from PWCA and Julie Bolthouse from the Piedmont Environmental Council participated in a podcast about improving community engagement with the industry. The key takeaway? It’s not about better communication—it’s about taking meaningful action.

Land, power, and water are limited resources, and the data center boom is only focused on meeting their own demand for growth, while community, sustainability, and environmental concerns take a back seat. Industry leaders at the conference admitted that prime land for data centers has been exhausted, leaving only “the best of bad options.” This relentless focus on growth is undermining resilience and sustainability, with significant impacts on both the industry and our communities. We will share the podcast once it's published 🤞

The Path Forward: Guardrails for Innovation

The data are clear: the data center industry must innovate. History shows that meaningful innovation happens when clear guardrails are established, as seen with regulations in the auto industry. Without robust policies at local, state, and federal levels, the current trajectory will persist, with far-reaching consequences.

At the local level, officials can:

• Improve data center siting with an emphasis on environmental and community impact
• Only allow by-right data center development and have the Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay align with those parcels
• Remove data centers from the target industry list 
  
  
  

At the state level, legislators can champion transparency and accountability, laying the groundwork for responsible growth.

Your voice matters. Share your views with local and state representatives.