Botetourt County residents concerned about the effects of a proposed Google data center campus brought those concerns, and some possible solutions, on April 7 to a neighborhood that will feel those effects most acutely.
Some 130 people packed the Ashley Plantation Golf Club Club House, with dozens more turned away for lack of space, for a community-led overview of the project and how it might be stopped. Situated just off Roanoke Road, the Ashley Plantation subdivision sits less than two miles from the site of the proposed data centers.
“This will be terrible for the people of Botetourt County,” said Danny Goad, a resident who helped organize the meeting. “The Google data centers are a raw deal. We build them a $300 million water system, give them a $31 million tax exemption every five years and they give us $10 million back every year. Not my idea of a smart deal for Botetourt.” Goad referenced the future water source which County Attorney Michael W.S. Lockaby says will be needed as early as the 2030s if the data center campus is built.
Goad walked the audience through these and other such costs and impacts in his presentation, which also included a timeline of the Google agreement. The evening also included presentations on the harm it would bring to Greenfield and the Botetourt Honey Bee Sanctuary located at its entrance, as well as potential legal remedies, including recalling the supervisors who approved the agreement. The group, joined by Ben Verschoor of the Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance, ended the evening fielding questions from the audience.
The event marks a milestone in the growing resistance to the Google project. “We have been holding community meetings in collaboration with the people of Botetourt,” says Verschoor, “but they put this together largely on their own. It’s exciting to see this kind of momentum.” This comes after months of residents petitioning the Board of Supervisors for a public hearing, a request also being made to the Army Corps of Engineers, whose public comment period for Google’s joint permit application ended on April 9.
~ Submitted by Ben Verschoor
Southwestern Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance
