Residents press county over Dogron West data center, citing noise, watershed and water-use worries

Hundreds of residents used a public comment period at the June 2 King George County meeting to press officials over a large, planned data center (referred to at the meeting as Dogron/Dogren West) near Brody/Peppermill Creek.

Neighbors, engineers and longtime residents said the facility’s continuous industrial chillers would generate low-frequency rumble that passes through standard homes, that the flat reflective waterways and marsh soils could amplify vibrations and that paving hundreds of acres would increase polluted runoff. Dan Shego, who identified himself as speaking for the area, told the board he was “completely opposed” and asked the county to require “continuous acoustic monitoring” with public dashboards and automated water-quality probes at stormwater outfalls.

Several speakers also raised questions about notice and outreach. Residents said many adjacent landowners first learned of the project within days, while county staff and applicants pointed to previous public hearings and an outreach office that held meetings at Mary Washington and other locations.

County and Service Authority officials responded in detail. Dan Hamilton, general manager of the Service Authority, said the county will not permit potable water withdrawals for cooling and that applicants may pursue either (a) a closed-loop cooling system or (b) a paid arrangement to pipe treated wastewater (recycled “gray” water) from the county’s wastewater plant at the applicant’s expense, subject to state permits. Hamilton said state regulators are unlikely to approve groundwater withdrawals for cooling and that any gray-water arrangement would require the applicant to pipe, treat and return effluent consistent with discharge permits.

Officials also explained power arrangements: a local electric cooperative model presented to the county would place infrastructure costs on the data center rather than spreading them across co-op ratepayers, but Dominion-style models can reallocate some costs into general rates. The board emphasized it had previously rejected an Amazon proposal that would have used river withdrawals and reiterated prior proffers by applicants that preclude use of groundwater for cooling in at least some proposals.

County staff said site-plan and engineering reviews remain to come: entitlements were approved earlier (the board referenced an August 2025 vote), but final site plans, stormwater calculations, erosion-and-sediment controls and engineered retention ponds must be approved before construction. The Service Authority and county urged residents to use the county’s KG Alerts and the projects GIS map to receive notices and to review earlier public-hearing recordings and documents.

No new legislative action was taken at the meeting; residents were urged to submit continued comments and staff said site-plan submittals will trigger additional local and state reviews.