WaPoo, Scenic Chesapeake Bay county finds itself in the middle of a data center fight "Residents in Maryland are pleading with leaders to hold off, joining others around the country worried about the harm the projects may bring."
PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — The local commissioners were 90 minutes into their meeting when they turned to the matter that had drawn dozens of residents and nearly a thousand more watching online: a vote that could delay the arrival of two massive data centers in Southern Maryland, including one on land intended for a public park.
Commissioner Mike Hart urged his Calvert County colleagues to not be seduced by the promise that the data centers would deliver tens of millions of dollars in fresh tax revenue, a pot large enough to pay for a wish list of items such as turf playing fields, a new sheriff’s headquarters and a property tax cut.
A more pressing need, Hart contended, is what communities elsewhere are considering as they seek to slow the spread of data centers — a moratorium allowing officials time to study how the tech warehouses that make online activity possible would affect the area, including whether they would generate intolerable levels of noise.
“What I know about a data center fits in this pinkie,” Hart told his four fellow commissioners, all of whom, like him, are Republican. “The responsible thing to do is to buy time and get the right people in place to help us through this.”
Over the past two decades, data centers have emerged as a robust economic engine for local governments across the country, a welcomed technological innovation that serves as the infrastructure to a faster, easier life. But the proliferation of the energy-hungry facilities, fueled by an explosion in digital demand during the pandemic and the advent of artificial intelligence, is provoking fierce opposition as concerns mount over strained electrical grids and soaring utility rates.Ask The Post AIDive deeper
The backlash was evident last month in a Pew Research Center poll finding that more Americans believe data centers adversely affect the environment and quality of life, even as they are more likely to see the facilities’ potential economic benefits.
In Virginia’s Loudoun County, home to about 200 data centers, the country’s highest concentration, officials have said they don’t want more. In Maine, legislation to ban most data centers until 2027 is advancing in the State House, while New York lawmakers have proposed a three-year pause. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) recently introduced a bill that would impose a nationwide moratorium on new AI data centers.
“Opposition has been expanding along with the intensity,” said Miquel Vila of Data Center Watch, an AI security firm’s research project that tracks resistance to the facilities. During a three-month period in 2025, communities around the country blocked or delayed 20 projects, a number greater than the total opposition over the previous two years, according to the group.
It's starting to be a topic of conversation here in the county. One of the sites being discussed is on property adjacent to the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, which you may know is only a hop, skip and a jump (about 2 miles) from our house. I haven't really taken a position yet. I'm not a big AI user as of yet (old dog and new trick), but I generally see it as a positive. It would mean more local jobs, certainly in the construction trades initially, but in the long run, higher paying technical jobs.
One concern I have is where they intend to get the water to cool the beasts. CCNPP is cooled by the bay, but I've been assured that will never happen again. Fresh water in Calvert County is well water, and most of the county is about maxed out on what they can extract from the aquifers before they start to run out. There is a deeper one, a 1000 feet down, the Patapsco aquifer that costs over a $100,000 to drill a well into. I presume they'll use a closed loop heat exchange system with evaporative coolers, and the small amount of "blowdown", water that must be discarded as the closed loop gets too gunky, will be treated and released somehow. But details are sketchy so far.
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