SWVA DCTA condemns the beginning of Google data center grading
Botetourt County’s decision to allow Google to begin site grading for its proposed Greenfield data center campus is a disgraceful abdication of duty and trust. The decision disregards not only the widespread community opposition and anger over the project’s development and risks, but the company’s disregard for the process in its other permit applications.
Google is months overdue in completing its application for a Virginia Stream Protection permit application with the Department of Environmental Quality. It has blown past its original completion date of June 26 due to having been asked five times for additional information and materials due to deficiencies in the application. The company’s application for a minor air permit has been delinquent twice in as many months.
There has been no update given from the Army Corps of Engineers on their joint permit application, which received more than 700 public comments and requests for a public hearing.
The Board of Supervisors only last month voted to appoint a special “Independent Commission” to examine the air, water, and other environmental concerns, grabbing authority over it from the Planning Commission in the process. Yet,appointments to the “Independent Commission” have not been announced, let alone begun their work.
Virginia DEQ bears some responsibility for this mismanagement. Allowing Google to keep an incomplete application open allowed them to move their other permits forward on lower standards for months. DEQ is trying to improve their public outreach, after disputing and delaying the release of air and water studies critical of the data center industry. We call on them to close this application and only reconsider Google’s proposal when it has complete information and higher standards.
Yet, the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors and Economic Development Authority, are ultimately responsible for this project, and its increasing risks. Allowing grading to commence signals a compete disregard for public concerns and their public duty, and feeds into a growing crisis of legitimacy with their constituents. Expediting approvals for a company that is strategically slow-rolling its applications is playing directly into Google’s and Big Tech’s strategy of taking advantage of ill-informed public officials and the communities they are supposed to protect. Google and the Botetourt County administration are determined to break ground, and in the process break the county apart.
The Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance is a non-partisan group of Roanoke Valley residents concerned about the rapid growth of data center development in the greater Roanoke region and Southwest Virginia, and the Commonwealth as a whole. We believe the presence of these industrial facilities does not benefit the long-term prosperity of our local economy, our natural resources, our neighborhoods, or our selves. Learn more about SWVA DCTA’s work at https://swvadcta.org.
Julie Bivins and Ben Verschoor, Co-Founders
Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance
Questions remain about Dal-Nita Hills waterline
My letter is to commend the Botetourt County Planning Commission for its 2-2 vote on the Dal-Nita Hills subdivision double loop waterline. I have never met or spoken with any of the four members of the Planning Commission.
The two positive votes still had concerns but voted to move forward because the folks living in the subdivision had suffered with water issues for many years. The waterline was passed over years ago with nothing being done to alleviate the problem.
One has to wonder why the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors (BoS) and the Western Virginia Water Authority (WVWA) ignored the situation for years. (In 1975, I sat in Professor Dan Amos’s soils class and heard him speak of doing soil work in the subdivision.) The problem became public again and a tie vote was made by the Planning Commission on the waterline issue. The tie vote was then overridden by the Board of Supervisors at its last meeting in late August.
Near the end of the BoS meeting an unnecessary rude comment was made by one of the BoS about one of the Planning Commission member’s negative votes. Let’s review the situation. The application packet published and signed by the county administrator was in print that required a 10x magnifier to read. The packet showed the waterline crossing Etzler Road about halfway to the subdivision. After reviewing the papers several times, the waterline crossed the road because the county administrator or his office staff had shuffled the papers. But this mistake created concern until the error was discovered. It was mentioned the waterline could be installed in the road. It was also mentioned the soils along the way were no problem for installation, they had been used before in construction. One of the soils is wet during the winter with soil water around the pipe. The second soil may require 18 to 24 inches of rock to be removed from the trench. The third soil has high shrink swell which may move the pipe over the years during wetting and drying cycles.
No one from the WVWA attended the Planning Commission meeting or the Board of Supervisors meeting to aid in understanding the application packet. Once the waterline reached the subdivision no additional information was provided to the Planning Commission. Probably a million-dollar project with incomplete information supplied to the Planning Commission.
Here, there should have been a drawing of the double loop waterline around the back of the subdivision. There was nothing for the Planning Commission to visualize. There were no easement maps showing where the lines would go or how they would be sited adjacent to the present drain fields.
Botetourt County residents have spoken of taxes and spending. But no comment was made to have two large water pipes installed in the same trench when only one pipe can be used for the homes. It would also probably be cheaper and faster to go along the streets in front of the homes instead of cycling the homes from the back.
A suggestion for the future– the BoS should hire the young soil scientist in the county and assign him to the Planning Commission. He could make site visits ahead of the meetings and update the commission members of potential concerns.
Working all over the state of Virginia from the late 1970 to mid-2015, I worked on problem sites. Never had I witnessed or heard of a double loop waterline. I have sent the WVWA a FOIA request of get additional information.
Being someone that appreciates history I wonder if the large (12-inch) waterline will be used for the planned subdivision across from the back entrance to the Greenfield sports area. Will any easements the homes give up be used for that subdivision?
Gary Whitley
Troutville
