Dear Coalition Friends and Supporters,
TAKE ACTION:
SHOW UP – Tell the Board to Vote NO on Hornbaker Data Center
March 3rd – 7pm
McCoart Government Center
One County Complex
Woodbridge
(If you can’t attend in person, sign up here by 5:30 PM on Monday)
Sign this easy to send email demanding a NO vote!
Read on for all the details:
To understand the fight we all are now facing, we felt it was important to ensure everyone had some historical/institutional understanding of how we got to where we are today.
To remind everyone, the Coalition to Protect PWC is a small non-profit, run totally by volunteers. The Coalition began this journey in December of 2014 to expose the data center industry because of ONE Amazon Data Center Campus, only 438,000 sq ft, that needed enough power to trigger an entire massive transmission line (or “extension cord as we so fondly described it) and an electrical substation. Washington Post: Dominion agrees to bury power lines in Prince William, ending legal standoff – The Coalition to Protect Prince William County
That one Amazon campus exposed a zoning weakness in Prince William County. At the time, Data Centers were treated the same as a Best Buy, like a computer store, therefore they were allowed to go EVERYWHERE, “by right” in ALL zoning areas except residential and rural. There were no regulations associated with this unique business and power/water customer. What was a solution to ensure that there were some constraints on where they could go? We looked around in 2015 and the only model that dealt with data center industry growth was Loudoun County. They had created a data center overlay that confined data centers to areas that were already industrial. So, our own Planning Department took a look at where data centers were ALREADY by-right in our county, given that we had no definition, and confined data centers to industrial areas. New definitions and standards were created, and the PWC Data Center Opportunity Zone was adopted in 2016. For three years, until 2019, it worked as designed.
All that “planning” began to unravel in 2019. Here we are now, grappling with the onslaught of industrialization in nearly half the land mass of Prince William County, primarily concentrated in the Brentsville and Gainesville Districts. But, the data center threats continue to sprawl to the farthest reaches of the county – both East and West. You can see here, as plain as the nose on your face, the unprecedented growth of the data center industry: Build-Out Analysis – Data Centers.
Orange and Green are ALL data center projects in some stage of development. While Blue is the Data Center Opportunity Zone.
The Gainesville District supervisor’s office has broken down the numbers in a very user-friendly format. In a nutshell, Data Center development OUTSIDE the Data Center Overlay/ Opportunity Zone is 35,111,012 sq ft, while data center development INSIDE the Data Center Overlay/Opportunity Zone is 50,869,259 – Data Center Overview 12-03-2025.pdf.
Whether inside OR outside the overlay, Prince William County’s regulations are NOT providing enough push back on data centers to protect residents. Period.
The solution is ENFORCEABLE ZONING RESTRICTIONS. The solution is to stop allowing this one industry to run roughshod over our residents, enabled by some of our elected leaders.
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
Because no one is immune to these impacts that are growing! EVERY data center campus that is built has a direct impact on YOU. Those impacts to you and your family are enumerated here:.
- Skyrocketing utility bills foisted on regular customers like you to pay for the data center industry’s unprecedented transmission, substation, and power generation needs
- 24/7 noise – primarily due to cooling requirements of servers
- Diesel generator pollutants reaching into our neighborhoods as restrictions to run them are lifted by our own VDEQ (Virginia Department of Environmental Quality) to ensure the data center power demand does not collapse our grid during extreme cold or extreme heat
- Massive transmission line infrastructure slicing and dicing throughout our communities, taking private property while WE are forced to pay the tab
- DOZENS of new substations, including Gas Insulated Substations -one in the Gainesville District and one proposed but not yet approved in the Brentsville District that will serve as a hub for MORE transmission line projects to feed the data center build-out both inside AND outside the overlay in Prince William County
- Hundreds of diesel generators. We are not sure how many are in operation now, with thousands more on the horizon
- The newest threat: Gas Turbine mini power plants on site to power the data centers until they can connect to our energy grid that is at risk of collapse due to the power demands of this one industry
Dominion Energy has disclosed that the expected power promised to Data Centers throughout Virginia has TRIPLED in one year.
The crisis Prince William County is in, RIGHT NOW, lies at the feet of our elected leaders, in particular, those elected leaders in the Occoquan, Neabsco, Woodbridge, and Potomac districts. Because of their continued support for data center projects, THEY need to understand from YOU that EVERY data center project they have pushed, contributes to YOUR rising electricity costs, YOUR risk to your air quality due to diesel generators, YOUR risk to your property due to transmission line infrastructure.
The Coalition has been pleading with this Board to provide more oversight within the data center opportunity zone! When it was created, no one knew the threats of noise, diesel generators, gas microgrids, and the overall risk to the grid. But now we know.
There is NO MORE TIME to waste.
There are more data center applications coming before the Board – inside the overlay AND outside the overlay.
The Hornbaker Data Center proposal is OUTSIDE the overlay and MUST be stopped. Remember, whether inside the overlay or outside the overlay, those broader impacts remain the same. EVERY Data Center Campus that is built is another card risking collapse in our house of cards energy grid under this ridiculous resource demand.
From Dominion’s most recent application to the State Corporate Commission (SCC):
“Moreover, the volume of requests continues to grow, with the Company receiving, on average, approximately ten new large-load DP Requests per month, representing a total additional 2,000-3,000 MW of requested load.”
As a reference to understand the kind of power need that is being forecasted: the 2-3000 MW of load (or 2-3 Gigawatts) is equal to the kind of power that 2 to 3 new nuclear power plants – needed every month – could generate.
On Tuesday night, YOU need to attend this Board meeting. YOU need to send this letter. Say NO MORE DATA CENTERS! You need to show up and say NO! Whether you live near by, whether YOUR community is facing the numerous new data center campuses even within the overlay, YOU need to tell this Board: THEIR yes votes for data centers are adding to the cumulative impacts we are ALL facing, THEIR YES votes are adding to our increasing electricity bills, THEIR yes votes are adding to this massive energy infrastructure build-out harming our communities, harming our air quality.
We are relying on the POWER of our Board of Supervisors to stop this insanity. Ultimately, the buck stops with them!
Microsoft Word – 26-03Mar-ORD-Special Use Permit #SUP2025-00016, Hornbaker Road
SHOW UP – Tell the Board to Vote NO on Hornbaker Data Center
March 3rd – 7pm
McCoart Government Center
One County Complex
Woodbridge
(If you can’t attend in person, sign up here by 5:30 PM on Monday)
Sign this easy to send email demanding a NO vote!
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