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Resident warns board that data center tax break and planned power plant could strain grid and neighborhoods
Summary
A Cedar Run District resident praised the board’s call to repeal a data center tax exemption, warned that an RTP applicant’s plan for an on-site power plant could create noise and pollution, and described a personal power outage during an eye surgery to illustrate grid reliability concerns.
Cindy Burbank of the Cedar Run District told the board she supports the supervisors’ consent-agenda resolution urging the Virginia legislature to repeal a data-center tax exemption she said cost the state about $1,600,000,000 last year.
"The data center industry doesn't need our subsidy," Burbank said, urging caution as the board considers additional data-center development and its electricity demand.
Burbank said developers for the RTP project have proposed building a power plant on site after Dominion Energy informed them they cannot provide service for at least five years. She referenced Loudoun County's smaller Vantage gas-turbine plant as an example of local impacts — including noise and pollution — and said she would email the board a recent article documenting neighborhood effects.
She also recounted a personal incident to highlight reliability concerns: during eye surgery, the power went out while staff were preparing a laser instrument. "If it had happened after it had started, what would have happened?" she asked, saying the team could not get the machine back on and she had to return for another appointment.
Her remarks came during Citizens' Time; she told the board to consider grid reliability and public-health implications when weighing proposals that add major electricity loads to the county.
