News

The City of Rocky Mount is considering rezoning 171 acres of city-owned property, and all signs point to a coming data center.

The property, located on Arrow and Dozier roads near Nash Community College, is currently zoned commercial. The request is a rezoning to heavy industrial, but it’s the conditions for the rezoning that caught the attention of Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman and Sound Rivers Executive Director Heather Deck.

“The conditions for rezoning referenced closed-loop cooling systems, noise regulations, excludes the use of diesel generators, and requires load-management strategies to reduce impacts on the electrical grid,” Katey said. “These are all buzz words for data centers.”

The rezoning proposal was heard by Rocky Mount’s planning board on Tuesday night, after which the board recommended Rocky Mount City Council move forward with the rezoning process. However, information provided to the board about what type of industry would be built on the property was vague, according to sources.

“It appears the city is trying to line this up without telling anybody what it’s for, including the adjacent land owners,” Heather said. “From our side of things, the huge talking point is now there are potentially three hyperscale data centers* sourcing water from Rocky Mount and the Tar River. It’s a water-capacity concern.”

Water-capacity issues are currently cropping up across North Carolina. Ongoing drought conditions spurred Raleigh Water to implement water restrictions for more than 660,000 customers starting April 20. Water levels for Falls Lake, a major drinking water source for Raleigh’s residents, are currently 2% above the threshold that could trigger water restrictions. Fuquay-Varina, in the Neuse watershed, is seeking to withdraw millions of gallons per day from the Cape Fear River Basin to support development, and Franklin County has requested an additional 15.7 million gallons of water per day from the John H. Kerr Reservoir for future demand. 

The millions-of-gallons-per-day drain on water resources by data centers has recently prompted several cities and counties across North Carolina to pass moratoriums, delaying construction of data centers until more information about their impacts are known.

In a WRAL article this week, “Is North Carolina at risk of ‘water bankruptcy’?”, Heather Somers, director of the North Carolina Rural Water Association, said this: “These rural systems don’t have the resources to do engineering studies so they don’t fully understand the impact before approving these projects. … If we don’t get some reins in place to reel that in and have some oversight on what these industrial users are going to pull from our resources, we’re going to be in trouble for sure.”

Katey said those concerned about future water capacity, other potential impacts and a lack of transparency should speak up at the May 11 Rocky Mount City Council meeting. The rezoning proposal will be presented to council and a public hearing will follow. 

“What we see in the language points to the real possibility of a data center,” Katey said. “And it’s up to the residents of Rocky Mount to ask the hard questions: Do they have a data center lined up for the property if it’s rezoned? What measures are being put in place to prevent the cost of increased utility usage from being passed on to residents? Have they let communities downstream know it’s happening?”

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 11, on the third floor of the Frederick E. Turnage Municipal Building, 331 S. Franklin St., Rocky Mount. 

* Developer Energy Storage Solutions has proposed two other data centers in the area: in Tarboro and the Kingsboro Business Park.

Like the work your Riverkeeper is doing to protect the Tar-Pamlico? We do. Donate today to support her work!