Sign the Petition

The Petition

Our Petition to Prince William County

We, the undersigned residents, neighbors, and concerned citizens, call on the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors to enact a targeted, temporary legislative DEFERRAL applicable only to specified legislative applications that directly apply to data centers, including any Special Use Permit, Rezoning, Proffer Amendment, or Comprehensive Plan Amendment. This deferral applies only to applications that require the Board to exercise discretionary legislative authority for which it has legal authority to act.

In essence, we ask Prince William County to defer any data center application requiring a vote of the Board of County Supervisors for 12 months. This deferral, or "pause," would not apply to applications over which the BOCS does not have discretionary authority, including "by-right" applications.

During this pause, we, the undersigned, expect the County to use this time to establish meaningful, enforceable protections for residents. At a minimum, the Design and Construction Standards Manual (DCSM) and other applicable County policies and ordinances governing data center development should be updated to reflect the scale and impacts of today's industry. These updates should include increased buffers and setbacks from homes, schools, parks, and religious institutions; an updated, data-driven noise ordinance developed with qualified expert recommendations; clearly defined and measurable performance standards; and meaningful enforcement mechanisms that provide accountability when those standards are exceeded.

Data center growth is affecting residents' quality of life, whether through construction without sufficient buffers, inadequate setbacks, noise, higher electric bills, air quality concerns from diesel generators and gas turbines, declining water quality, or the threat of transmission lines taking private property and substations encroaching on residential communities. Our house is on fire. The only way to stop a fire is to stop adding the accelerant.

Prince William County is 43% watershed. The Occoquan Reservoir, the primary drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of Northern Virginia residents, is already registering elevated salinity and PFAS ("forever chemical") contamination at concerning levels. Required groundwater and water-quality studies remain incomplete. The cumulative impact of data center water consumption, diesel and gas turbine emissions, high-voltage transmission infrastructure, and industrial-scale power demand on our communities, our environment, and our grid has not been adequately studied or disclosed.

This pause will provide time to assess the effects of the data centers and related infrastructure that have ALREADY been approved on the lives of all County residents, while establishing appropriate guardrails for our future.

The consequences of inaction are irreversible. Our water, air, land, and community character deserve due diligence protection before any further industrial development proceeds.