The data center industry, it's like a plague. They lit a fire with the grassroots community that was not going to give up. The current path we are on is clearly not compatible with human existence. Never before has grassroots been more important. And that's the part the data center industry did not understand. Today on The Tech Report, I'm joined by the executive director of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, Elena Schlossberg. Thanks for coming on. Absolutely. I'm glad you invited me. So you've been at the center of what is a years long legal battle around a five gigawatt, more or less, data center planned for construction in your county in Virginia. Now that data center has been canceled. Take us back to last week, how it was hearing that the Prince William County Board of Supervisors had unanimously voted to abandon their efforts to push through this construction of the data center. It was a huge relief. As a community, we felt vindicated, like finally our elected body was listening, making the right decision. we had worked tirelessly for really, I mean, the world just saw from the moment the Digital Gateway was approved, you know, December of, you know, 2023. But we've been working tirelessly since May of 2021 when it was initiated. So, I mean, what was required was the level of community involvement that I've never witnessed before. It included two recalls, an attempt to recall two supervisors. It included putting pressure on the planning department such that it was a revolving door. We had one planning commissioner or planning director stay for two weeks. And he's like, I am not whatever is happening here with the digital gateway and everything else. I want no part. So it was just a collective effort of so many people who understood the threat that the Digital Gateway presented to our community and to the region and to the state. And I'm really proud that our supervisors were able to walk through a door that we worked really hard to open for them. uh sometimes it's you know it's hard uh when you're in positions of power and you have a lot of public attention to admit that you made a mistake uh but we all make mistakes and there are very few times in life that we get a do-over almost never do we get a do-over so they took it so just take me through what what exactly was the threat that you were facing in it as a result of this data center? Because I'm sure a lot of people at home will be aware there's the energy concerns, the water concerns, and these sorts of broad concepts. But I think the reality of a 2 million square foot data center is quite different. It was 22 million square feet. Sorry, 22 million. Sorry. No, no. I mean, it's hard to even consider what that means. It's the size of 147 super Walmarts. So Prince William County is unique. and that we are stewards in the western end of Prince William County. We're stewards not only for the most important historical national park in the entire country, but also we are stewards of a regional drinking water supply for a million people and in an emergency for two million people. To build this kind of heavy industrial next to this important historical national park, which is almost 5,000 acres, and in the headwaters of a drinking water supply, is the epitome of irresponsible leadership, irresponsible conservation and environmental preservation, irresponsible protecting critical resources for the community. it would have changed not only this area from rural to industrial, but it triggered other industrial projects. So imagine that you have a virus and it is corrupting other cells in your body. That is what this kind of industrialization does. People need to look at not only the influence of money that was occurring here on our elected leaders, but also what it does to a community. It tore this community apart. And so, you know, one of the things we say is the data centers destroy communities. We meant it. it has that kind of corrosive impact. But I'd like to think that it also provides an opportunity for people to come together, which you saw. There are choices people make. And people made choices to fight. And I really commend everyone in Western Prince William and also those organizations that were not just our local conservation groups like Prince William Conservation Alliance, but also Piedmont Environmental Council, who's a regional preservation conservation group, Sierra Club, their local state chapter, and also National Parks Conservation Association. And we turned what was accusation of a NIMBY issue, which data center development is not, and we turned it into a global issue. and what happened here is a model for how to do it wrong and then how to try to fix it and do it right what is the you talk about the fight what what has that fight been like and what toll again you mentioned a little bit earlier as well what has that toll been like on those people sort of fighting it. Imagine that you live in a community and you have a certain amount of faith and reliability in what that community looks like. You know, you've got your neighbors and they walk their dogs and you hear the birds and you just go through life through those motions of life. And then suddenly you find out that there is this kind of industrialization that will raise the land, bring in 24-7 noise from cooling. It will bring in thousands of diesel generators. It brings in transmission lines and substations. Your whole environment turns into a concrete metal jungle. and then you find out you've got to pay for it in your utility and your water bills. Then you find out that it might impact your wells or the quality of your water if you are on the receiving end of this drinking water supply watershed. Everything about your life that you thought was would no longer exist. And that's the truth. I invite people to come to Northern Virginia and I take them on tours. You find yourself in Northern Virginia, Isaac, I'll do the same thing for you. And you get to see what the largest industrial data center development looks like and how the data center industry is wanting to replicate that everywhere. And that was the threat. And what did it, I mean, this has been not only a toll on people's, um, psychological and mental wellbeing, but also their physical health. People weren't sleeping. They were every moment of their day was consumed with stopping this project. Um, and, uh, it really, like I said, but it also joined people together because we could all, you know, we could all talk about how much harm this would bring, uh, not only to themselves, but to this once, once you, you ever see the matrix with Keanu Reeves? Okay. Only the first one. That's the best one. Um, but once you take whichever pill it is, the blue pill or the red pill, once you're, once you see it and you understand it, you can't unsee it. You can't go back into that world. And there have been people that have moved away And guess where they moved to Areas that are now experiencing data center development whether it in Virginia or two other states So I can say is that Western Prince William pulled away the veil so everybody could see what this industry was really about. And it's not about being anti-data. I use data. You and I are using data right now. but it is to what level do you use data? And it is the introduction specifically of AI. And so what we say is, this industry has to figure out how to consume less of everything or else we are going to sacrifice our real world for a digital world. And that is not an exaggeration. And in addition, the unprecedented amount of power and water that is required for this industry is simply not feasible to make happen. But the rush to try and get there before the other data center developer does is the harm that community after community will feel until it all collapses. And I say this, you know, we are all together in this. The data center industry and the community, they have to evolve and they know it. And we're simply providing the space and the room for them to slow down and be able to find that innovation. If they are required to pay for all of their transmission infrastructure, their generation infrastructure, if they are not allowed to consume our critical water resources or our farmland, then they'll figure out a way. Because necessity is the mother of all invention. But what they're not going to do without backlash is absorb our public utility and our ratepayer money to pay for their generation, to pay for their transmission lines. pretty soon there will be a case to the Supreme Court of Virginia challenging this idea that one industry can use our public utility and their ability to exercise eminent domain over private property to feed their economic development because they are still a private industry. So they get to collect all their money and they get to use all the profits while we subsidize all of what makes their business model possible. And that's the backlash that is happening. So the thing that brought me on to your story was the news that there was a poll by the Washington Post that found support for data centers in Virginia had gone from 70% in 2023 and dropped to 35%. It was about those numbers, dropped to 35% this year, I think the day after the vote happened. What do you think caused such a dramatic swing in opinion, especially given Virginia has so many data centers already? Here's what happened. QTS and Compass and a local board of supervisors thought that they would run roughshod over our history and our critical resources. And they found out the hard way. don't mess. Don't mess with people's homes. Don't mess with people's kids when they're, we have data centers next to schools that have diesel generators. What happened was they lit a fire. They lit a fire with the grassroots community that was not going to give out. that window from 2023 to 2026 uh started with the digital gateway and it started with us exposing uh this lie of nimby first of all i mean as a as a defense of nimby if you don't care where you live, who's going to? And since when do we, do we people want people to not care where they live? Do we not want them to take care of their homes and their neighborhoods? Do we not want them to care about the quality of their schools or the quality of, you know, how they impact their surrounding counties. It is, of course we want people to care. So we turned that NIMBY on its head. And we had rallies in front of the Ritz-Carlton where the data center industry was having a conference and the lieutenant governor was planned to be there. So she showed up and all she saw was, you know, about 30 people with their signs. And it was about the resource consumption of this industry. It was not about protect my backyard, although that is a big part of it. It was about the energy. It was about the water. It was about the abuse of local government. It was the concern about rising utility bills, which by the way, we weren't seeing yet, but we knew that we would. it was standing in front of QTS and having a press conference and challenging them about protecting our history and our water. It was all of that relentless. It was about getting into spaces like LinkedIn and starting to communicate with people who are within the industry. It was the industry miscalculating in their arrogance that if they just ignored us, we would go away. And what they didn't understand is that we already had the receipts on the kind of energy demand that we knew they triggered from a previous data center fight in 2014 with Amazon. So what happened? they got greedy that's what happened and uh you can debate impacts on like your community you know you can debate some of these things but what you cannot debate is the math and the science and the math and the science of this industry and their cumulative impacts you cannot escape And on its face, it's also blatantly unfair that we as community members are paying for their infrastructure. and the other thing that started happening isaac is all these things that we predicted about the digital gateway were happening because all these other smaller projects were being approved and those cumulative impacts of those smaller projects and the scale at which they needed water and land and power now you started to see the physical manifestation the substations the transmission lines you started to hear about those impacts on water like in georgia and um they just yeah that's that's why why do you think so many people were still in favor of them back in 23 2023 especially considering like you say there was a fight against the amazon data centers in 2014 as well we've never heard anything from loudon residents okay as the biggest as the data center capital in the world. And what we begin, what we understand now is that Loudoun's data center alley really was planned. And so their data centers were close together and in an industrial area. It is not until the digital gateway that we start getting attention to data centers in general. And then you have the JLARC study. We're also going to Richmond. We go to Richmond to the General Assembly January 2023, January 2024, January 2025. You know, we start going every year and we start asking for legislation. And in one of those years, we get a study pass called JLARC. And that JLARC study is the first time we have an objective commission say there is a problem And then we are able to really utilize what we We already knew because of this previous Amazon data center campus transmission line fight what we knew would be happening and those threats And so slowly but surely, we start to gain steam. And then we start having complaints about noise from an Amazon data center campus in Manassas. And then we start going through these new transmission lines that are coming through Loudon and Prince William. And then we have PJM. I mean, it was a snowball, Isaac. It was a snowball of new infrastructure that was starting to build. And now the community was starting to see it. They were starting to see what else happened. You saw Village Technology Park go up 50 feet from condos. Across the street, you see a hyperscale campus that's 350,000 square feet, one building. And so what we had predicted, now you start seeing the manifestation of all of that. And now you start having other communities and other parts of the country deal with these kinds of impacts like in Georgia. A woman from Georgia actually drove here to Northern Virginia so she could understand the QTS application that was very, it was similar in that it was farmland and that it was never supposed to be industrial and it was being built near this new planned residential community. And so Georgia then becomes the next focus. Okay. And so, and so now you have other communities like, oh, oh, wait a second. And that's what I mean. They took, they took the success, other data center developers of the digital gateway, because they did not understand. They didn't understand the problem with how significant that advertisement issue was going to be. And so you start seeing this model pop up everywhere. And so if you are someone who sees who you Google and see something about day centers, well, where are you going to go? You're going to go to Virginia. You're going to go probably to the Coalition to Protect Prince William because nobody else had, we had a website we'd created in 2014. And so that begins this very loose coordination between the coalition and then you've got Piedmont Environmental Council, they become very engaged. And there's a new data center coalition that starts forming that's beyond the small Prince William coalition, but it has many more state and national organizations. And so it just starts feeding itself. Why does, why suddenly has the data center, you know, narrative gone in the toilet? Because the truth has been, the truth, Sal Shet, you set you free and the truth does. The truth sets us free and that now community after community can go to the math and the science of the catastrophic impacts of what happens when you try and build out this kind of energy. You have a transmission line that's coming out of West Virginia, and they're fighting really hard, and it's going into coal. So this whole narrative of, oh, we're green and we're renewable, I mean, we knew immediately that was false. that that was just totally impossible. And then what happens? We have a transmission line that's proposed from Fort Martin, I think Fort Martin, I think it's Fort Martin, West Virginia, into Data Center Alley. And so now all these Democrats who've been talking about how it's all going to be, you know, solar and wind or whatever, we're like, well, this one's going into coal. What do you say about that? And we keep saying our mantra the entire time is data center driven, data center driven, data center driven. Now prove us wrong. If you can prove us wrong, we'll stop saying it. But they can't. And I think it is a huge miscalculation of the industry to think that they could crush our voices and that we would not uh and that we'd be some kind of like tree hugger i've never tied myself to a tree i don't see myself doing that uh what we relied on uh was the previous information from that fight in 2014 through 2018 and we relied on that as our foundation and we simply brought more people in what do you make of what's happening in Maine, then passing what I think is essentially a statewide temporary ban, at least, to block data center constructions over a certain size. Do you think we're going to be starting to see that other states start following suit, perhaps? So I joked really early on, there was only going to be two states. I said to my husband, honey, I think if we have to move, there's only two states we're going to be able to go to, Maine and Vermont. Because those states would never allow this kind of sort of Robert Barron-esque approach to government and to their resources. So it doesn't surprise me. I actually am surprised it took them that long. Because you can see this is, they are, the data center industry. it's like a plague okay and that plague moves they consume your resources and then they move to the next place you know i mean adam is you know another plague at passover which i have so you know they really do behave in this manner and so because once they've destroyed an area um like what left what is there left to fight for i i mean around data center alley uh you know selling those homes will become more and more difficult which is being experienced right now the the wine of a gas turbine 24 7 unless you i mean i do have video of it and you can you can pair it fairly well but to live it every day they can't sell their homes and the health consequences. It's not just like you hear a plane every once in a while go overhead or a tractor trailer drive by. This kind of onslaught to your senses is physically harmful. It's harmful to young people, to young children and to very old people. So it's not just some, you know, like some rich people fighting for like, you know, oh, they're just NIMBY. And this is not, you know, your public highways are publicly funded and publicly used. It's not a profit-making business. This is a profit-making business. And the seven wealthiest men in the world are planning how they're spending their money. Have you ever seen the movie WALL-E? Okay. I mean, I think it's Elon Musk and Sam Altman are getting on the, oh gosh, what was it called? The ship? Axion? I know what you mean. I can't remember, but I know what you mean. Whatever it was called. And they're going to leave the earth behind this wasteland of data centers and substations and transmission lines. And just, I mean, nothing will remain and they're going to be somewhere going to Mars. I don't, you know, I mean, Sam Altman talks about it. One day the earth is going to be covered in data centers. Is that, is that what we want? And this is not some like, oh, I just want to go live in a tent and forage for my, you know, food. I am not suggesting that, but I'm suggesting the current path we are on is clearly not compatible with human existence. Do you think if magically somehow, and this is a big suspension of belief or disbelief rather, do you think if these data center builders somehow managed to address the water, the power, the noise, all of these issues, do you think there would still be some opposition based on distrust of big tech companies and the tech that they're selling and then opposition to data centers as a result of that. It's a really interesting point that you bring up, Isaac, because all we have been able to focus on are the physical manifestation impacts, right? Air quality water quality impacts to your home the list goes on But we are seeing a change in society Without, it's like we want the oversight on the physical manifestation, but who's going to do the oversight on the social manifestation of what is happening to our kids and to government, right? to what do you believe? What is real? What is not? It's a real threat. And so I'd like to think that that would be addressed as well. I mean, you have young people, recent graduates who can't find jobs. I mean, you hear certain data center developers talk about, well, you won't need jobs anymore. But what is human existence without some purpose? Are we all just supposed to sit in front of our computers and drool, put on our digital masks and enter the fake world that Facebook had created? What happens to our meaning for being here? And that's a much bigger existential question that I cannot answer until first we address the physical. Because if we can address the physical, then all that other stuff will have to slow down as well. They haven't explained how all of this makes sense economically, societally, emotionally. I mean, for the health and well-being of a world that if you believe, which I do, is under significant stress. I, you know, I mean, I believe in climate change. Now, suddenly we don't care about the fossil fuel. They're going to cure cancer. Well, they're going to need to because we're going to be breathing in more cancerous pollutants than ever before. So I question the future of what they see. My vision of the future is very different from theirs. And that doesn't mean that there isn't a utilitarian need for what this new technology could bring. But we are not doing that. we are doing stupid videos so in in my research for for this interview i discovered that lots of council members across lots of different states were being voted out because of their support for data center projects and it got me wondering especially with the midterms coming up and as you mentioned it's it's become not so much just a nimby thing and become a much more national movement and a global movement. Is this something that you think is going to be playing out in the midterms, especially given there is a lot of support, generally broad support from the Trump administration for data centers? There is support by both sides. What Trump is simply doing is he is utilizing our own federal energy regulatory commission to push through what states are pushing back on, which are Republican and Democratic states. So it is, and listen, you know, Joe Biden's executive orders on his way out the door were about allowing data center development on federal land. So, you know, I mean, I mean, Trump just doubled down on, you know, Biden opened the door and then, and then Trump just, I mean, lit it all on fire. I think the way it will impact the midterms is elected leaders are going to have to say where they stand and what they're willing to do to stop it. Because everybody's doing this. The I don't see movement in Congress. I don't, you know, I know that our congressman, Senator Suha Siddharmonian, has tried to work on some legislation. And I know that Bernie Sanders has, you know, a moratorium. That's not, I appreciate that he's done that. That's not going to move the needle. You know what I mean? It's great for elections. I am not one to do something just because of an election or because it'll get people all energized and angry and they'll come out and they'll protest. That will not move the needle. You have got to propose legislation that's going to make an impact. Like, why isn't Congress having a hearing on what FERC is proposing? So when you ask, will it have an impact on the midterms? I don't know. I'm not voting for somebody just because they might come out and say I'm against data centers. I refuse to be used by either party. And I've learned my lesson. So, you know, we expect someone to... Walk the walk, I think is how it goes. Talk the talk, walk the walk. I want to see action. You want me to change my vote? And let me tell you, this is a very dangerous issue because it is not partisan. And as much as there are issues that divide people right now, let me tell you something, Isaac, when Dominant Energy is coming to take your property, that you worked so hard to buy, to plant your flowers. It's your biggest asset. What politician is going to run on this issue in a way that they can prove they're going to figure out how to pass legislation? That's the key. Because Bernie Sanders and AOC they're talking about a moratorium that is not going to pass. Once again, I appreciate that because it has raised the level of the impact. And they both gave really good speeches. Even people who are super conservative, and I know them because I am in this space, like, wow, I don't think I'd ever, ever agree with AOC. But she was right. People really gravitated more towards what she said than what Bernie Sanders said. because his was more that, you know, like the societal impacts, right? But that's going to be, that'll be the true task. And just finally, what is next for you and the coalition? Is this something you're hoping to make grow? So, I mean, we're still focused on our most recent action, of course, was on a statewide level, pressuring the governor to veto any legislation that comes before her that does not include totally rescinding this tax subsidy that we are all paying for as Virginia residents. And then, you know, we're still focused. There's still multiple threats happening in Prince William County for data center development. I mean, just because the digital gateway is gone, I mean, the likelihood of it being resurrected is very slim. So it's still here, you know, floating around. It's not totally absent. So it's a multifaceted approach that we take to how do we how do we protect Prince William and also the state and also this broader threat of, you know, obviously, Burke being able to come in and totally run roughshod over your regional and and and state utilities. So it's all of that. It's still talking to people from, you know, going to Frederick, Virginia, and being on a panel and talking to people about this very basic, never before has grassroots been more important. And that's the part the data center industry did not understand, was that at the end of the day, I loved it. You know what? The Washington Post did that I loved, and I reached out to Evan Helpern, who was a part of that article. I said, I loved that you called, but that I didn't see NIMBY. You changed the definition from NIMBY to voters. At the end of the day, this is going to be a political solution. based on facts, based on science, based on the health and well-being of just your average person. Well, Elena Schlossberg, thanks for taking the time. You're very welcome, Isaac. It was a pleasure. If you enjoyed today's episode of The Tech Report, please consider liking and subscribing. Also, you can get episodes of The Tech Report wherever you get your podcasts.
