James Dutton

Spalding County Data Centers, Part 3.

Restrictions and local rules

Okay, so I posted about why the best strategy is to limit and restrict data centers instead of trying to outright ban them and how those rules and restrictions will be enforced. But what are those rules exactly?

Great question, I would love to tell you.

Now, I won't get into all of the rules and every special condition, just like I wasn't going to get into the legalese of the constitutionality of bans, etc. (Those discussions are interesting to us lawyers and law geeks but very few others!), I simply can't go too far into the details or the overarching message will get lost. So here are some key take aways from our rules;

1. Possible locations

Data centers are, by rule, limited to a specific type of zone that is specific for them and them only (my good friend Amanda Kay Gilbert has also found that there is a very weird and ultra specific zoning type that might also eork as an exception to that, but we are working to close that hole now that she's found it; thanks again for your help Amanda!).

That specific zoning can only be located in our industrial and employment corridor which was designated by the state government as highway 16 east from the city limits to Butts County and all adjoining properties (and I think one additional property north and south of each that boarder those that actually touch the highway, but, again, I'm at home with a sick son today and don't have the rules right in front of me so I'm doing this off the top of my head).

That 4-lane highway was created and designated as an industrial area in the early 1970s (before I was born) but it was never developed till about two or three years ago when the Spalding County Water authority finally got around to laying the infrastructure down for water and sewage. They never before had the funds to do this (the county budget is as small as we can make it each year) but the businesses themselves offered to shoulder most of the costs and so the system can now finally be built.

2. Water usage

This is a huge issue with some data centers. The new data center in Hampton, for example, will consume around 5 MILLION gallons PER DAY to cool the computer equipment inside it.

My fellow Spalding County Commissioners and I feel like that's a literally insane amount so we created rules to stop it from happening here in our County.

Specifically we require data centers to use a CLOSED LOOP system that does not waste water but internally recycles it, much like your car's radiator. If you have to fill up your radiator then something is wrong. It's the same with data centers here.

Now, they still have to provide bathrooms and kitchens and the like for their employees, which they will have quite a few of (between 100 and 200 or so), but they are capped at 25,000 gallons a day. That's about the same as what four longhorn steak houses would use. It's more than I use at my house, but it is less than any of the manufacturing companies in our green industrial park, The Lakes at Green Valley, and is even less than some distribution warehouses use (the newly announced Prime Trucking Hub will likely use much, much more just in washing their trucks as part of their operations).

For another comparison our data center will use in a year what the Hampton data center uses in less than 2 days...

Before they can be approved they also need a certificate from the water (and power and sewage) provider saying that they have the capacity to supply them with the water and that the amount supplied will not impact the supply to others in the county. This is a very important and often over looked step.

3. Run off and green space

We have very high Green Space requirements; developers must leave around 30% of the land as 'green space'. Now, that does include any water retention ponds they are also required to build and it also includes the required 6ft earth berms that go between them and the road frontage.

That 6ft berm must also have a double row of planted trees on top. I'm fighting for Georgia's new state flower the magnolia to be the tree of choice, but various evergreens are also currently acceptable.

The idea is to screen the large warehouse like buildings from site, just as we have required to be done with all the other growth that has already happened along that corridor. When you drive from the city limits to Butts County you're driving thru a green tunnel almost because you don't see the nearly 20 large scale projects that are already going up or have already been built along that route. It still looks green and it still will after all the other sites build.

4. Lights

All external lighting has to be 'dark sky' compatible. For an astronomy Nutt like myself that's important, but it's also important for those that live and drive by; no one wants to see a bright industrial site, even through the trees and over a berm. Hence the requirement that no light can leave the site directly bit instead has to only point straight down. (Some will of course still escape the site, light bounces after all, but it would have to get through the 100ft set back, over the 6ft earth berm and thru the double row of planted trees that are required. The point is, bright direct light is a no no under our rules)

5. Set backs

If you've ever driving up 155 from Griffin to McDonough you notice that almost as soon as you cross into Henry county the road turns from green forest land into a Gotham City type industrial wasteland (no offense, Henry county). We absolutely will not stand for that here in Spalding and made rules requiring at least a 100ft set back from the roads. In that set back is, as mentioned above, a requirement for a 6ft berm which itself is planted with a double row of evergreen trees to block the view.

Both the green space and the setbacks and plantings are subject to the approval of the planning and development director who will review each site to ensure its doing all that can be down to cut down on sight lines, light pollution escaping into neighboring properties, and that the appropriate type of trees are planted in the most appropriate ways.

6. Sound

We require the buildings themselves to be constructed of materials that won't allow sound to escape for the most part. The low humming that comes from the computer equipment inside and that humming is stopped by the tilt up walls we requirement to be used.

That said the real loud part of data centers is the back up generators they employ should the transmission lines ever fail. Those generators are the size of tractor trailer trucks and make about as much noise, unless you limit them that is.

Our rules require the use of Gen 5 generators (Gen 5s make only around 55dbs of noise or about as much as a noisy home refrigerator) AND we require a 20ft high acoustic dampening wall to be built around each one, thus further dampening the sound even before it crosses the qppft set back and then gets to the 6ft high dirt berm and the double row of planted evergreens on top of said berm.

Even so, they only test once a month or so (or so every source we have investigated has told us, both the data centers themselves and the local stakeholders nearby), and if their use is needed beyond that it would mean the main power lines were down. Since it's the main lines themselves, if they are down then that means something on the scale of a huge catastrophe has occurred and noise from a backup generator would be the least of our problems at that point.

7. Limits on the total number of data centers

Since we require all utility companies to sign approvals before a data center can be rezoned, we now know for a fact that Georgia Power and the local power infrastructure can only support a maximum of 3 or 4 total data centers in the county depending on size. Less if they are larger centers.

To that end, there have so far been three sites rezoned for data center use. Two were speculators hoping that other companies would come in and buy/build there but no progress has been made in that direction (most likely due to the extreme cost difference in building in Spalding vs other counties due to our extremely high rules). The third was for a firm that wanted to build its own center asap. They also haven't taken the next steps (Plat approvals, final plans, etc,) and we suspect it's not moving forward due to those same rules making it much harder to build here than anywhere else.

8. Power transmission

While we are not allowed by the state to limit power use on any level, we instead learned the lesson from the mistake fayette county made when they allowed their data center to be built on 54. That site didn't have the on site power supply the center needs so more power lines had to be run to the site. This has required peoples yard's to be seized and high powered lines to the run through their backyards.

We strictly forbid this in Spalding.

Any proposed data center site must a) be in our industrial corridor and b) already have power transmission available on site or any least next door/across the street. We won't be seizing any land to run power.

Now, much like the cost of power, we have zero control over what state utilities/agencies do, but it is the intention of the Spalding County Board, so far as I understand it from both my own opinion and from speaking with my fellow board members, that such seizures should not take place for data centers here.

9. Decommissioning

Our rules require the owners of the data centers to buy a bond for an amount that would pay for any Decommissioning needed should the site ever shut down. Technology has a life cycle, and that life cycle is pretty quick all things considered. The last thing we want is a giant unsightly building left vacant and causing a nuance.

The money from the bond would go towards adapting the building towards other uses (warehouse, etc.) And would ensure that there isn't ever just a giant empty building left on the site.

10. Special conditions

Each time a data center has come we have added special conditions on top of the regular rules for data centers which are themselves on top of our general rules for all sites.

These include site specific issues like water run off and ground water issues. We consult with the local River Keepers about any such concerns and have always taken their thoughts and concerns as gospel.

In fact, every suggested special condition they suggested as additional constraints on data centers we have adopted. Every single one. Every single time. So much so that the river keeper called me personally the next day to thank me for being such an ally to them in helping to prevent any environmental damage that might come from these data centers.

Let's talk data centers. Part 1.

This will be a long post, and most like just the first of many.

Zoning rules are the way local governments restrict the actions of developers. However, if those rules are not backed up with sufficient reasons then if (when) they are challenged, a court can rule that they are arbitrary and thus unenforceable and thus void.

So, if a county, like Spalding County, which has an industrial corridor that has been established over 50 years by the state and has large industries and warehouses, etc., in that corridor already, tries to outright BAN data centers, then the data centers can sue the county on the grounds that such a ban is arbitrary.

They would most likely(like, 90% chance) win such a challenge in court, thus striking down the ban.

If such a ban were to be struck down, the data centers could then, by law, built anywhere they wished and without any restrictions whatsoever. This would be the worst possible outcome for any county.

If instead, a county put in a temporary (but still very long) moratorium on data centers and used that time to study data centers and the effects they have on stakeholders, including local citizens, the environment, and the utilities it would share access too (and didnt just vekieve what we read on the internet...), and only then put in rules based on that extensive research, then a court would not be able to rule that those rules were arbitrary (they being backed up by actual research science).

That is exactly what Spalding County did nearly two years ago.

We put in a very long term moratorium and used that time to travel all over the nation to speak with stakeholders, tour data centes, visit the house of those who live around them, to get the real facts about these projects from all angles. We then used that information to craft our rules.

The rules we have created for restricting data centers are the highest and most far reaching rules in the state and probably some of the highest in the nation (but I can't say that definitely as we haven't seen every county's rules world wide).

Those rules restrict every aspect of data centers from planning and development to site selection to building to operations through even to decommissioning.

We took the issues that data centers have shown they cause elsewhere and created rules to stop any and all such negative impacts or to at least mitigate them to levels far beyond what even warehouses or manufacturing companies would be subject to. That is to say, data centers in Spalding County, by rule, can cause less harm to the environment, the citizens, and their neighbors than warehouses, distribution centers, or manufacturing companies can.

Why is that important? Because if sites in our industrial corridor are not developed as data centers (as only a very few in total can be by rule) then that site can and most likely will be developed as a warehouse or manufacturer, the rules for both of which are less restricting than the rules for data centers and the harm they cause much more extensive.

(Why are the rules for such places less restricting? Because our rules are at the highest levels courts have traditionally allowed for such places without them being struck down [see above], which is lower than the current levels so far allowed by the courts when such rules are challenged for data centers).

Our rules are so well written and so thorough and so strong that they are used as the model rules statewide. Other counties, literally dozens of other counties, have asked us directly to send them a copy of our rules so they can implement them and stop the harm future data centers may do in their counties.

ACCG [the association of counties for the state] has even asked us to come and teach other counties how to properly implement our rules and we have been honored to do so on numerous occasions.

I have heard that the courts where challenges against data center rules are heard are literally using our rules as the standard by which they judge the rules set up by other counties and cities to see if their rules are arbitrary; if they are set higher than Spalding County's rules, they have so far struck them down and rendered them unenforceable.

So, while we can't outright BAN data centers, we can make sure that they are not allowed to cause the harms we have all seen them cause elsewhere.

In part two, I'll discuss enforcement of these rules but right now I have to take a sick kid to the doctor.