URGE FAIRFAX COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS TO HALT APPROVALS FOR DATA CENTER CONSTRUCTION

A new data center has been proposed in Chantilly that would rely on fuel cell technology to convert natural gas into electricity. Although the data center would primarily get its electricity from the fuel cells, it would also require additional power from the electrical grid during “higher load periods,” along with diesel generators as a backup power source.

Emissions from power plants that feed existing data centers already contribute significantly to air pollution through the release of CO² and particulate matter; fuel cells, however, are fueled by natural gas, and the methane released during natural gas extraction and transport is a potent greenhouse gas with 80X the warming potency of CO² during the first 20 years it enters the atmosphere! methane-crucial-opportunity-climate-fight. This would suggest that fuel cell-reliant data centers will only increase all impacts of air pollution (impacts include increased incidence of lung cancers and strokes, increases in neonatal mortality, and increases in extreme weather events such as drought and flooding, sea level rise, as well as higher rates of heat-related deaths due to global warming). 

In addition, data centers’ backup diesel generators contribute significantly to additional air pollution, which directly results in higher incidence of asthma, premature death, strokes, and hundreds of thousands of lost workdays among local populations. Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action estimates that the effect on health care resulting from data center pollution costs Virginia $13- $21 million per year. For additional information on the impacts of global warming on human health, see NIH's global warming and its health impacts. These costs are clearly far greater than any job-related economic benefits reaped by data center construction. We have lived well without AI support for centuries and can surely manage without it for a few more years while we figure out how to safely increase our energy supply needed to support data center technology.

Furthermore, data centers use billions of gallons of water, most of which is lost as steam and thus not returned to the local water system. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC, 2024) produced the most comprehensive statewide assessment of data center water use to date, based on a subset of major utilities, primarily in Northern Virginia. JLARC estimated that Virginia data centers consumed approximately 2.1 billion gallons of water in 2023, an 86% increase since 2019, and data center proliferation, with its water use, has only grown since 2023. securewater  

Fairfax County and the entire state of Virginia are experiencing their second consecutive year of drought. https://www.drought.gov/states/virginia/county/fairfax Streamflow is “much below” average, and groundwater levels are diminishing. The Potomac River, the source of much of the county’s drinking water, is experiencing lower water levels, which then leads to higher concentrations of water pollutants, contributing to the Potomac’s recent recognition as the most endangered river in the U.S. americanrivers.org/2026/

The proposed T5 Data Centers will seek a special exception to build a 312,000-square-foot data center on a roughly 19-acre site at the intersection of Stonecroft Boulevard and Lee Road in the Westfields International Center at Dulles, according to a letter filed with the county from Allison Reynolds, a land use attorney representing T5. Reynolds acknowledged that, “To date, Fairfax County has not evaluated a data center or other facility proposing to use on-site fuel cells to address its energy needs.”   

Logic suggests that it would be only reasonable for the Board of Supervisors to refrain from approving any new data centers until such studies have been completed to fully evaluate the economic and health impacts on the people of Fairfax County It would also be prudent for the Board of Supervisors to request input from organizations such as the Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action and the Piedmont Environmental Council, two Virginia organizations that have been studying similar impacts and have the data that will clarify the impacts of continued data center construction on Virginia’s citizens’ health and on the local environment.

Please contact the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and insist that approvals for any new data centers cease until the environmental and health impacts have been fully evaluated. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/ 

Feel free to include information from this article in your letter, email, or phone call to support your request that the County investigate fully and then stop data center construction in Fairfax County.