Data center construction in Northern Virginia is reshaping historic landscapes and local communities.
Although our modern lifestyle requires an ever-increasing amount of digital bandwidth, the infrastructure that powers it has traditionally been surprisingly compact. An estimated 70 percent of global internet traffic goes through Northern Virginia, especially the area of Loudoun County known as Data Center Alley. The current AI revolution is driving unprecedented expansion in this sector, pushing development into once-rural areas.
The American Battlefield Trust has been a leader in sounding the alarm about the impact data center developments pose to the hallowed ground they are increasingly coming up against, engaging in lawsuits over improperly considered and approved projects in Prince William and Orange Counties.
Allied organizations, including those who have filed amicus curiae briefs in support of our suits, have also done significant work articulating the environmental impact of these facilities – both on individual historic gateway communities and more broadly across Virginia, as the Commonwealth considers their cumulative consequences. Data centers aligned with some of the world’s largest companies are threatening the communities, ecosystems and historic lands that define Virginia, negatively impacting the region's air and water quality and drastically shifting energy consumption patterns.
While the Old Dominion has set ambitious goals for clean energy usage — the Virginia Clean Energy Act of 2020 mandates that Dominion Energy Virginia and Appalachian Electric Power produce 100 percent renewable electricity by 2050 — the rapid expansion of data centers threatens to undermine these efforts. These facilities are among the most energy-draining industries in the state. In 2022, data centers accounted for 21 percent of Dominion Energy’s electricity sales, making them the only growing sector in electricity demand in Virginia. Unconstrained data center growth is projected to increase power consumption by 183 percent by 2040; without any further data center growth, it would be just 15 percent.
Data centers also use massive amounts of water. A single data center can consume 3-5 million gallons of water a day, drawing from the same local supplies facilities that sustain communities and local ecosystems. On an annual basis, a single large data center facility consumes as much water as 30,000 households and because of efficiencies in delivery of water, power and fiber optic infrastructure, construction tends to be clustered. The Prince William Digital Gateway would build dozens of such facilities across 2,100 acres of land. That’s an area equivalent to nearly 1,590 football fields!
The consequences go beyond the construction sites, increasing stormwater runoff into streams and rivers and intensifying pollution. These disruptions diminish the beauty of Virginia’s historic landscapes, eroding the quality of life for those who call these areas home. The number of proposals and the accumulation of so many data centers in a relatively small area has led to a strained electric grid, increasing reliance on polluting backup diesel generators. As more data centers enter the area, residents are left with the task of paying for the energy used and paying for the implications of impacted air quality, depleted water resources, health threats and environmental concerns.
Unchecked, the rapid growth of data centers will reshape Virginia’s historic landscape and strain the resources that make the state livable for residents and a desirable destination for visitors. Data centers are a necessary part of modern life, but a holistic review of proposals, undertaken with increased transparency and oversight, will ensure that they are more meaningfully and sustainably integrated into the Commonwealth’s communities. More than 25 organizations across Virginia have formed the Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition to urge state lawmakers to study the effects of data center development across Virginia. The future of Virginia depends on a balance between technological advances and the continual preservation of the landscapes that define America’s past and will continue to sustain its future.
