News

The quest for information about a data center proposal in Edgecombe County and creating a community strategy continues.

Last Friday, Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman was back in Tarboro for a planning meeting with community members.

Held at the Tarboro Coffee House and hosted by Jo Rutter, a student and community organizer behind Edgecombe Neighbors for Data Center Accountability group, the meeting was focused on strategy.

As attendees entered the coffee house, they were given a choice of tables and the topic of discussion at each of the tables: communications/outreach, political strategy/fact-finding and research.

Katey selected the research table, an extension of the work she’s already doing to find out more about the potential impacts of data centers.

“I was sitting with Kevin Wilson, the owner of Oak Grove Retreat, Owen Ellis and Mavis Stith, both residents of the area,” Katey said. “We talked about lots of different things, but I was focused on the water-quality issue and gave everyone an update about my conversation with (Edgecombe County Manager) Eric Evans and a potential stakeholders group the county is considering.”

Though the proposal for a $19 billion, 900-megawatt data center in the rural community of Kingsboro has yet to be submitted to the county by Energy Storage Solutions, stakeholders will continue to meet.

“This meeting was helpful in keeping the momentum going, getting people together to think about it,” Katey said. “I was also able to share some of the resources we do have about strategy related to data centers.”

Concerns about data centers include massive energy and water consumption, straining local grids, increasing emissions and depleting water resources, leading to community conflicts, particularly in drought areas. The Kingsboro data center proposes the use of City of Rocky Mount water, flowing from the Tar River through a water treatment plant to the proposed data center. The water used to cool systems is super-heated in the process and is then cooled with gases known to contain PFAs. Whether the water will be treated to remove the PFAs — if that’s even an option — or discharged straight into the Tar River is another concern.

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