The Chairman of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors, and supervisor for the Mineral District, Duane Adams, will host a town hall meeting this Thursday at the Louisa High School regarding Amazon’s proposal to build a third datacenter in Louisa County. The town hall will be at 6:30 in the Alan Jackson Theater.
An initial public hearing regarding the proposal did not go well for Amazon as most attendees, it was reported, were opposed to the project.
Tammy Purcell’s excellent “Engage Louisa” blog explains in detail Amazon’s proposal, the Louisa County Board of Supervisors responses, the general mood of people attending the hearing. Her blog lays out the issues regarding water usage, power consumption, environmental impacts, and proposed revenue from property taxes.
After reading her recent blogs on the proposed datacenter, however, I have reservations and don’t think it in the best interest of Louisa to have a third data center for several reasons.
Amazon’s application for a ‘conditional use permit’ does not specify how much power the data center will require, nor does it specify how much water it will take from the Northeast Creek Reservoir daily. They are intimately related. Water consumption is based on the number of liters per kilowatt hour (l/KwH). Without hard numbers on power consumption, estimates of daily gallons of water consumed from the reservoir are meaningless speculation. Estimates range from 500k gallons per day to several millions. Given the record heat wave this past week, draws of 3 million gallons of water a day for weeks on end would drain the reservoir. What are the contingencies should that happen?
As for the power, where will it come from? Does Virginia, with already over 500 datacenters — the highest number in the U.S. — have the capacity to provide power to ever increasing numbers of datacenters? At a minimum, this lack of capacity will raise electricity costs for Louisa consumers, with perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in higher utility bills annually. Dominion Power has already proposed 15 percent increases, according to news sources, to power the surge in datacenters. What about emergency generators? How many and how often will they be tested?
In the absence of state wide generating capacity, will local gas-powered power stations be a proposed solution? In Pittsylvania County, Virginia, the citizens there recently defeated a proposal for a 3,500-megawatt gas powered power station for a 2200 acre datacenter campus. According to reporting by the Daily Yonder, “researchers from the Dominici Lab at Harvard University’s School of Public Health went to work mapping the plant’s expected emissions of a particularly dangerous pollutant called fine particulate matter. No level of exposure to this kind of pollutant is safe, yet the researchers found that more than 1.2 million residents would face some amount of pollution across the Virginia-North Carolina line.
In Pittsylvania County, around 17,500 people, or more than one in four county residents, would face levels of exposure associated with increased hospitalizations due to heart attack, pneumonia, cardiovascular issues, and in severe cases, stroke or cancer.”
Too many questions remain unaddressed for a decision to be made anytime soon. Overall, are we as a community willing to trade a few extra phantom dollars into the county’s coffers at the expense of our health, give up our precious water resources, accept unaffordable electric bills, roll over to more environmental degradation?
Who benefits from this cozy alliance between local boards of supervisors succumbing to the siren calls of phantom tax receipts and billion-dollar CEOs? Why the rush?
Datacenters’ are like the coal mines of the gilded age, extracting wealth from finite resources of local communities for the benefit of the new breed of robber barons in their Newport Mansions. Let’s stop, think, and reflect before we rush into approving this application.
Democracy is the cornerstone of our Republic. It is just as important to focus on local elections as it is national elections. Sometimes, however, local elections get swept up and into national debates and they become sideshows, even though our local elected officials make decisions that impact our lives daily. To promote local discourse, I intend to highlight persons running in local races, to let them, in their own words, make their case for your vote.
I recently asked David Rogers if he would be willing to answer three questions about his run for the Mineral seat of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors. He agreed. I am pleased to present to you David’s responses to the questions below.
Mr. Rogers is running to replace Duane Adams, who is also the current Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. Adams term expires December 31 of this year.
David H. Rogers, Candidate for the Mineral Seat of the Louisa Board of Supervisors
What motivates you to run for the Mineral seat of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors?
First let me say what does not motivate me to run. I am not running because I need something else to do. I am not running because I need to get my name out so I can run for another office. I am not running because I am not happy with what I already do a s a Church Insurance Agent.
I am motivated to run because we have not had good representation with our current board member. We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. I believe that if people want change, then someone must stand up and fight for it. I would like to be that someone.
I am motivated to run because under the present board, projects have been voted upon that benefit developers and not the people. In negotiating contracts with businesses, we should have a give and take relationship with the Mineral/Louisa residents coming out on the positive end.
I am motivated to run because under the current board member, there is no transparency. The constituents find out about an issue after the fact. This must stop. When Board members move on to other aspirations, we will still be here struggling with the aftermath of bad decisions for many years if we don’t do something now.
What makes you the best candidate for the Mineral seat?
I am the best candidate for the Mineral seat because I realize, “it is not about me.” It is about the people. I have no ulterior motives for running except to help the people of Mineral and Louisa at large. Although I did not grow up in Louisa, I spent my summers here with my grandparents. My family has owned land here for about 130 years. I know that the decisions I make will affect many families including my own.
I CARE about the people in Mineral. I have gotten word that there are homeless people in our Louisa County. This may not be something we want to admit, but it is true. There are groups that are seeking to help these families. There was a ruling that says if churches opened their doors to those who found themselves homeless, the churches could be fined. It is unconscionable to even think about imposing a fine on churches for opening their doors in the freezing cold to those who have found themselves homeless. It is bad enough that our neighbors have had problems resulting in loss of shelter. To have them risk freezing to death is savage. When did we lose our humanity? Whoever even thought to write that down or even think that we could fine a church for doing what the church is called to do, needs a “humanity check”. We need to assist as much as possible.
I believe I must be transparent and keep the people informed. We found out, after the fact, that data centers would be coming to the Mineral/Louisa area. I also noticed that zones in the town of Mineral were changing from commercial to residential to commercial on a whim. Who did this benefit? The developers. The people may not have agreed with this.
A proposal was made for a truck stop to be developed in the Cuckoo district. If it had not been for the people of Cuckoo, coming out twice in full force in the rain after their private meetings, it may have passed. A truck stop would have brought more crime to our county, in the form of drug and human trafficking along with prostitution.
Most of all, I want to hear what the people need and want so I can include them in making the best decisions for all. Many of the issues I mentioned above were shot through before the people got a chance to digest them. It is my goal to always put the people first. That means having regular communication using the best means possible to keep the people informed. Communication with my neighbors will be of the utmost importance to me.
What challenges will Mineral in particular, and Louisa County in general, face in the next three to five years? How would you address them?
Problems with our roads
Many of our roads are receiving traffic they were not built to handle. I am speaking of the eighteen-wheeler tractor trailers. These heavy trucks travel on the curving roads and chew up the road shoulders. It is hard to see around the curves so crossing the road to get to a mailbox is unsafe for our citizens, especially the elderly. Trucks also present a safety issue while traveling on these single lane narrow roads. Some roads were made for this type of traffic but there are no signs to encourage trucks to use them. This will only get worse as our population increases. Maintenance is also an issue. Strict guidelines will need to be followed to keep large trucks on the appropriate roads when driving through our locality.
There is also a need to study traffic signals at the busy intersections to keep the traffic flowing, especially around the busy hours of the day.
Problems with data centers
The present Board of Supervisors have already voted to have data centers come to our county. These centers take up a lot of resources like land, water and electrical power. This will result in brown outs and black outs because of the increased stress on our old power grids. There have been no plans to upgrade the electrical grids in the Louisa area. I am told that upgrades have not been done since the 1970’s when the power plant was built. Based on our population and current usage, the area would not be able to sustain added pull on our old system. We may have put the cart before the horse and need to take a side-step before moving forward with like projects. Truth be told, better planning could remedy this.
As mentioned, the roads will need to be upgraded to handle the heavy truck traffic during the construction of the data centers. The construction will take several years.
Keeping Louisa balanced between rural and metropolitan
I know many of the residents in Louisa have come here because they like the rural atmosphere. This is something I want to preserve and in my discussions with many of my neighbors, they feel the same way. Are we following the standards that would keep Mineral/Louisa rural? We need to revisit these standards before we become too metropolitan. Sustained growth is good, but we must do it in a way that we do not take away our rural lifestyle.
Having adequate housing to support our residents
We need to negotiate with developers to build housing that is affordable. The housing needs to be affordable for people we want to attract to our area like new teachers, just out of college, new emergency personnel, and other recent college graduates. We are already lacking in these areas.
Having businesses to support living in Mineral/Louisa
We need to attract businesses that will train and employ the people in Mineral/Louisa. Louisa County High School has many excellent programs that train our students. We need businesses to capitalize on their career training if so desired, they do not have to leave home.
Having adequate resources to keep Mineral/Louisa safe for all its residents
Louisa has a growing elderly population. We need an Urgent Care Center in the heart of Louisa (not close to the county borders) that all our county people, especially our elderly, can reach quickly. The center could have medical personnel to initiate treatment and to be able to stabilize a person in an emergency and to prepare them for transport. It could also provide preventive care and medical education. Having after-hours care would be of benefit because you know children don’t get sick until after dark.
These are just a few things. Please know that I am always open to discussion about any concerns of the people in Mineral/Louisa. I am David H. Rogers. I can be reached at rogersdh97@gmail.com.
