A sign welcomes visitors to Hal & Berni Hanson Regional Park on Sept. 28 in Aldie, Va.
Josh Morgan, USA TODAY
“I don’t think we need any more data centers,” said Sam Lechman, 35, who brings his three young children to a $91 million recreation complex in Aldie, Va., a project built with the help of tax revenue from data centers. “There are other ways to pay for these nice things.”
Lechman, a county resident for more than a decade, said there’s “pros and cons” to the embrace of data centers. He said he enjoys amenities like parks and new schools, including one his daughter attends, but he believes the construction happened too quickly.
“I think they need to slow down and see what the repercussions are going to be,” he said.
Loudoun County resident Greg Pirio poses for a portrait Sept. 28 in front of a data center near his home that he said caused health issues for him and his neighbors.
Josh Morgan, USA TODAY
‘We’ve been screwed’
Living close to data centers upended some lives.
When Greg Pirio moved to the county in 2010, he enjoyed long walks through the woods near his townhome. He’d often lead his dog to a nearby pond and pick wild berries. “It was lovely, rural nature,” he said.
Last year, a massive data center came online a block from his home.
Now, he says he struggles to ignore the mechanical whirring of turbines and generators. He can sometimes feel the emissions from the building’s gas power plant in his chest and throat.
“It sounds like a jet engine,” Pirio, 76, said. “Not a moment goes by when I don’t think about it.”
Vantage Data Centers, which operates the VA2 facility, said it built a power plant on site because it could not connect to the region’s strained power grid.
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The data center was built “by right” without board approval or community input, officials said. Local council members said they were also not notified when Vantage changed its site plans to include gas turbines.