I read through the Notice and it appears to impact only data centers in Loudoun County, and does not affect other data centers in other counties such as Prince William.  As citizens we count on DEQ to rigorously follow the science and data in making decisions on issues like this, and to not consider comments motivated by political or personal interest for those decisions. 

There is a loud group of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) interests in Prince William who are throwing every objection they can dream up to stop the Prince William Digital Gateway project for their own personal interest.  This project has already been through multiple rounds of review by multiple government agencies and has more yet to go.  An aggressive communications and misinformation program has rallied people to its cause.  There is also a less organized group of property owners who would stand to benefit economically if the project were to be completed.  These people have weighed in on occasion but in more muted terms and actions.

My encouragement to the Department is that neither of these opinions should have bearing on decisions that are supposed to be made on environmental and broad (state or county level) economic criteria.  Please evaluate your sources of information carefully.  If environmental considerations support the waiver being issued, political agendas and personal interests should not stand in the way of approval.  And if similar waivers are needed elsewhere (such as Prince William) they should be subject to the same criteria.