If data centers are allowed to expand their use of "emergency" diesel generator usage, I fear for the impacts this will have on air quality for the people nearby and the community and region more broadly. We need far more oversight, regulations, and restrictions on data centers, not less. 

This video from A More Perfect Union documents the use of gas turbines by one of Elon Musk's data centers in Memphis, TN. When these companies come in to build their data centers, they clearly care about only one thing: their profits. We cannot trust these companies to do the right thing by the communities that will bear the brunt of the air pollution, skyrocketing energy costs, sunken water tables, dried up wells, desecrated wildlife, etc, etc. 

The people of Loudoun county are speaking out: we want no more data centers, and stricter regulations on the ones that are already approved. I firmly believe there is no benefit to having these things in our communities; they create basically no (lasting) jobs, and any tax benefits in the short term will be outweighed by skyrocketing energy costs and, more importantly, the ecological degradation that they will surely precipitate in various forms due to their monstrous energy and water demands.

Please hear our voices, beginning by refusing additional diesel generators.