WILL YOU PAY THE BILL TO PROVIDE DRINKING WATER TO NEW DATA CENTER?

 We’ve heard a lot about the financial benefits of data centers, what about the financial burdens?

If you’ve driven along U.S. Route 1 lately, you noticed the never-ending pipeline construction project at its intersection with Fall Hill Avenue. Now multiple the time that unfinished project has taken by a hundred and you’ll begin to understand the timeframe the city faces building a recycled water pipeline to the proposed new data center. The recycled water is needed for the data center cooling system, which will require millions of gallons of water a day.

The line will run from the city’s wastewater treatment plant on the Rappahannock River across the city almost to River Road in Spotsylvania. That’s where the proposed data center campus will be. You literally can’t build a longer pipeline through the city.

If it takes six months or more to build a relatively simple storm sewer and turning lane project at a single intersection, imagine how long it will take to build a new pipeline across the city. It will likely take years just to purchase right-of-way before construction can begin. And Fredericksburg likely will bury much of the pipeline under city streets, which means residents will face years of traffic disruption all across the city.

Because it’s going to take so long to build this pipeline, City Council has already stated publicly it will allow the data center developers to use city drinking water to cool their buildings for an unspecified period of time while the recycled water pipeline is being built. This creates a whole other set of problems that have yet to be discussed publicly by City Council.

How many years might Council allow the data center to draw drinking water from the city before the recycled water line is ready? The developer has already said it would be five to seven years before data center construction is complete, which means they expect building a pipeline to take even longer. How much longer?

Does the city have drinking water capacity to supply both its current and future population, in addition to a new data center campus for this unspecified number of years? The answer is no.

To accommodate a data center, the city will have to expand its water treatment plant. Now, don’t confuse this with the recent groundbreaking for upgrades to Fredericksburg’s wastewater treatment plant. Expanding the drinking water supply would require additional tax dollars at a time when city real estate taxes and utility fees are the highest they’ve ever been.

The city has recently approved or is about to approve about 1,000 new housing units in the city. That includes apartments, condos, and townhouses. Even with an additional 3,000 to 4,000 new city residents who occupy those units (more than a 10% increase in the city’s population), the city does not need to expand its water treatment facility to meet that need. BUT, if the data center is built, the city will not be able to supply enough potable water for residents and the data center without increased capacity.

So, here’s the question every city resident should be asking: Who’s going to pay to expand the city’s water treatment plant to accommodate a single user? Taxpayers or the developer? The developer has already offered to cover the cost of the recycled water line, but nothing has been said publicly about the millions needed to expand the city water treatment plant.

And then there’s the upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant. Will its future capacity be able to handle millions of gallons of recycled water recycling through the plant over and over on a daily basis from the data center? There’s been no public discussion on this either.

Even with the huge tax break the city has agreed to give the proposed data center, the financial benefits from operating it will be substantial and will help the city’s finances. But Council still needs to give the public a full accounting of the financial costs at all stages, most importantly before it’s operational. The public needs to know if it will face higher taxes and water bills for several years before the data center goes online and before a single tax dollar is collected from the project.

Up to now, Council has told city residents only about the financial benefits. There’s been no discussion of any financial burden. And there are many decisions yet to be made about supplying utilities for the project. If the developer’s claims are true, the new data center will provide more tax revenue to city coffers than all of Central Park and Celebrate Virginia combined.

It's time for Council to lay out all the facts for both financial benefits and future costs. It’s time for sunshine in the city, something Council has failed to provide so far.