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By Jeff Moore

Contributing writer

 

Crisp County Board of Commissioners heard both from proponents and residents opposed to a proposal to rezone land that fronts Cemetery and Old Nesbitt roads for construction of a data center.

At its Tuesday, May 13 regular meeting, the commission held its initial public hearing on Red Wolf Properties’ request to rezone a combined 583.62 acre area from rural residential to general commercial for the data center campus.

Red Wolf’s consultant Andy Camp, a regional director at Thomas and Hutton specializing in Georgia economic development, mapped out details of the project, including the steps planned to address potential noise, traffic and utilities usage for the first phase of the project.

earby residents spoke to air their concerns about the noise from the data center, potential issues caused by the amount of electricity needed to operate the facility, along with many other concerns about traffic and more.

The hearing is the first step in the board of commissioner’s rezoning process. Interim County Administrator Mickey Dunnavant said the board would consider action on Red Wolf’s request at June’s regular meeting.

Those in favor of the data center project were the first to address commissioners, with Camp leading off.

Camp said he wanted to first talk some about the proposed data center, which he said is not the crypto currency mining type of operation.

“What we’re talking about is a data center, so data processing data storage, um, and what,

“What the data centers facilitate (is) a lot of things we use in our daily

lives, every day,” Camp explained. “From what we do with our smartphones but also routing 911 calls, and processing things every time we swipe the card or purchase something online.”

Data centers also help with emergency activities, noting that the medical industry is one of the driving forces in the demand for data centers, he noted.

“These are gonna be considered mission critical items,” Camp said, adding that they also support churches, nonprofits, small businesses, restaurants and the infotainment side of everyone’s lives.

He said he has been working with Crisp Electric and they have the availability for the first phase of the project.

“The development will pay for all of the infrastructure upgrades, all of the equipment that’s required to deliver and how we design,” Camp said. “This is not electricity that’s currently connected to someone’s home or to their business. This will be new electronics that will be delivered for this project.”

Because the electricity is separate from the system that serves the community, he said it will not affect any existing customers on the Crisp County system.

Another concern often raised with data centers is water consumption, Camp said. The proposed project will use a closed-loop system for cooling that works much like the radiator in a car.

Camp noted that the regular water usage would be similar to that of homes, but occasionally some will need to be added to the loop cooling system to replenish it.

“We’ve worked with and talked with the water and sewer department, that capacity is available,” he explained. “Again, any upgrades that might need to be made to deliver that to the site will all be paid for development.”

Once operational, Camp said the data center will create 180 to 200 new jobs with pay averaging about $80,000 a year. The jobs do not require college degrees, instead some technical training to achieve certifications, which can be accomplished with partnerships with local education partners — high school and area colleges.

“Then we anticipate there may be about 270 ancillary jobs that will be

things that are kind of there support businesses that would work with

the companies once they’re open,” Camp noted.

It will also create jobs during the construction phase, and will provide a boost to local tax revenue for the county and the school system, he said.

Camp explained the noise created by the data center will not be like that people hear about with Bitcoin mining operations.

“Those tend to be a little bit louder than maybe some folks

would like. That is not our project,” he said. “Our project is going to

utilize a vegetative buffer and then distances our friends when

it comes to sound, because over distances sound drops.”

Camp said new plantings, along with the design, will provide extra protection when it comes to sound traveling off the site.

At the property lines, he said they expect their efforts to limit any sound created by the data center to 20 decibels through the assorted measures that are planned.

“Just for context, most conversations exist in that 50 to 70 range depending on the volume that people are projecting,” he added.

Camp said that they will keep in touch with those living nearby to deal with activities at the data center that could produce increased noise levels.

“We will talk to everybody around in the neighboring areas and find the best time to do that, which I can assure you will not be midnight on Wednesday evening,” he said.

All lighting around the exterior will be turned in toward the data center, Camp said.

“There aren’t any lights that actually point out on the site,” he noted.

During construction, like any construction project, Camp said there will be some deliveries along with the people who work on the site coming in.

“We’ll work with the sheriff and we’ll work with the fire department, police department, whoever we need to engage to make sure we route that correctly so it has the most minimal impact,” he added.

Camp said that if for some reason that road doesn’t hold it up that they rebuild it and make sure that everything is left the way it

was or better than when we build the project.

When the facility is open, he said with the number of people working there 24 hours a day, seven days a week that it will still have 43% less traffic than a residential or industrial warehouse development.

The data center also will not have a smoke stack or any types of emissions and there will not be any chemicals on site, he added.

“We think it’s a very good fit for the community,” Camp said.

Dunnavant then said he had a letter from Chris Hewitt to read on behalf of the Crisp County Power Commission.

“The Crisp County Power Commission has established a judicially responsible approach to managing high density load connections that protects our existing customer base while accommodating growth,” Hewitt said in the letter. “Under this policy, customers requesting

connection of high density loads to our power grid will be required to assume full responsibility for all capital costs associated with the construction necessary to service the load.”

Hewitt went on to explain that 75% of all capital costs must be paid in advance prior to material being ordered and construction beginning. The remaining 25% then must be paid prior to electricity being turned on.

“This policy allows us to accommodate growth and new development without passing associated costs to our established customer base,” Hewitt said in the letter read by Dunnavant. “We believe this approach

represents sound financial stewardship of our electrical infrastructure and serves the best interest of all Chris County residents and businesses.

Grant Buckley, the community’s lead economic developer and director of the industrial development authority was the third and final person speaking in favor of the data center project.

“I think this project is a good fit for this community for several reasons,” Buckley said.

He noted that the property backs up to an existing industrial park, and won’t be a stress to the city’s water, sewer or gas systems, noting it also backs up to those services. Additionally, he noted that Crisp County Power can handle the initial load with some infrastructure which is already in place.

“I think it’s gonna be very good for the property tax revenue for the county and schools,” he told commissioners. “It should help our hold our taxes down, and we’ll also have sales tax revenue to the local community.”

Buckley said it will also be good revenue for the power commission, will provide jobs for students graduating from high school with salaries of about $80,000 a year.

His remarks concluded the section where those in favor of the rezoning presented.

 

The opposition

Board of Commissioners Chairman James Dowdy then called on those who wanted to speak against the rezoning.

The first speaker was Cemetery Road resident Carla Baker.

She expressed concern about health effects on nearby neighbors, noting that several children living in the area already suffer from health problems.

“We live on a four-generation farm and a year ago, we got tasked with trying to turn it down, trying to save it for another generation and the future generations,” Baker said.

Her concern is how it will affect the value of the property.

“If it does decrease in value by you rezoning it and you putting it there, do you plan on compensating us for the devaluation of our property,” she asked.

Baker also asked if the new revenue would be passed down to property owners through a decrease in taxes.

“In any capacity, protect your constituents, protect your country neighbors,” she told commissioners. “They just want to have some peace and quiet.”

Cemetery Road resident Rhona Bernecker said she has lived their more than 15 years and loves being there because it is a peaceful place to live.

“We’ve not really addressed the negative impacts that’s going to come to all of us in the community and I just feel like the best that was put forward,” she said.

Bernecker said she has concerns about power consumption, water usage and noise.

“This is going to be a 24/7 noise factor in our life and it is going to affect us,” Bernecker told commissioners. “The trees, the barriers, that’s going to take years and years of growth for these trees and the woodland area that’s going up on the corner.”

She said she doesn’t believe they will have more than a minimal affect on noise levels for many years.

“This construction phase is going to be again, my word is nightmare … We’re scared,”Bernecker said. “We’re scared for our peace. We’re scared for the children that live in the community. And I for one do not want this.”

Next a Cemetery Road resident spoke asking if Red Wolf is receiving tax incentives to locate in Crisp County and questioned why the company wants to come to Cordele.

Another man who lives on Cemetery Road said he has experience in this type of technology and believes the presentation about the project was misleading.

He expressed concerns about the noise levels both outside and inside, citing the potential for hearing damage for those working at the data center with the noise off of the equipment. He also said he believes the facility will cause traffic to quadruple.

Paul Barker, who has 35 acres across from the area where the entrance to the site will be, spoke in opposition next.

Barker said he is concerned for the people in the area and how the data center will affect them.

He expressed concerns about it causing electric rates to increase, along with the effects on residents during construction. Barker said he spoke to people who live near a data center in Fayetteville who said the noise from the building site went on 24/7 for three years.

“The kids couldn’t sleep to go to school,” he told commissioners people there had told him.

The next speaker told commissioners that he believes the only good thing about the proposed facility coming in is that they will no longer hear the noise from Interstate 75, the railroad and the raceway when they are running because of the sounds from the cooling systems.

Next, a woman who lives on Hwy. 257 said the presentation on the project was “too good to be true.”

“My daddy used to have a saying about that,” she told the commission. “It’s usually if it’s too good to be true it usually is. I have lots of concerns about this.”

She went on to say that Crisp County already gets a bad rap from people who say there is nothing to do here and that if this project moves forward it will make things worse with a huge eyesore near so many family farms.

Deborah Meador, who lives on Wanda Road off of Hwy. 257, took the floor next to tell commissioners that her family moved to the community 15 years ago and stayed despite having the opportunity to move after two years.

“We don’t wanna hear the buzzing of this high tech stuff,” Meador said, noting that she enjoys sitting outside in the evenings.

She said she believes they won’t hire any local people in the construction phase, instead bringing in trades people from other areas.

“It’s not gonna do anything for us,” Meador said. “It’s gonna do everything for them. It’s gonna be all about them. It’s not gonna be about the community, the citizens or anything like that.”

She said she has family from New Jersey who visit and love the community as it is.

“Don’t make this into a crazy, crazy town,” Meador said. “We don’t need that. Let’s keep it the way it is.”

Addressing questions

After residents voiced their opposition and raised a range of questions, Camp returned to the speaker’s podium to provide responses.

First, he spoke about the questions about health concerns.

Camp said he is not oblivious to the fact there is a possibility of health issues out there, but he believes it will be very small.

“I can tell you during the process that um they will not be

allowed to pollute,” he explained. “They will not be allowed to have dust problems.”

He said this is considered and addressed as part of the design, but added he he believes both code enforcement and the building department should be there to ensure there is not an issue.

“Please bring them out there and I just ask that it’s regulated really well,” Camp said. “I think you’ll end up with a high quality construction management team that has worked on many, many projects like this and they’ll do everything they can to make sure that it is minimized to zero.”

On concerns about property values being affected by the data center, he said that based on operations of this type with longevity that property values usually remain stable or increase.

Camp then spoke to the concerns about Crisp Electric, including that it could increase rates.

He explained the system that will connect to the data center will be a completely different system, adding that the utility is buying new service that will be just for the facility.

Staying with utilities, Camp said the daily consumption of water at the data center will be mostly that used for bathrooms and break rooms.

“Give or take 200 employees on the campus as a whole, that’s,

that’s a pretty small amount,” he said. “We’ve had conversations with the water and sewer operators student and that capacity is available.”

Camp said there will be times they use additional amounts, such as needing to drain the fire suppression system and refill it. He said they have addressed this with local officials and they are confident it the capacity is there.

There were questions raised about the vegetative barrier and the trees taking a long time to reach heights that would shield neighbors from noise.

“When we start, we’ll go ahead and create a nursery there so as we expand,” Camp noted. “We’ll be able to relocate a more mature tree

to a place where it needs to be permanently. So we won’t be starting

with what we think of as plant pines.”

He said plantings will be staggered so all the trees have appropriate breathing room and prove useful.

“We don’t want them to just be there to check the box,” Camp said. “We’re actually trying to do it to make it more not only aesthetically pleasing but also accomplish what we’re talking about — the sound.”

Another resident asked why Red Wolf selected Cordele for the data center.

Camp said that’s an easy one — the humidity. The system that will provide the cooling is one that works best with a lower humidity.

On the question about subsidies for locating in Crisp County, he said the Red Wolf has not entered discussion for any tax incentives on the local level.

Camp noted there is a state incentive they may consider for high investment sales and use tax exemption.

He said state officials have discussed the merits of that program and whether they want to continue it. “That is not contingent upon what we’re doing here, but that could be something that they could apply for with the Department of Revenue and they could pursue that if they want to.”

On construction at the site, Camp said they will work with local officials and neighbors to come up with hours to avoid issues at night. He said there may be times when they have to do something like a concrete pour at night because of daytime heat, noting that would be limited.

“I believe that could be worked around and could be respectful for those living around the project,” he added.

As far as noise concerns from operation of the data center, he noted that everything will be inside the building.

“Inside the building, the people that work and maintain those servers and maintain those building systems, they will have personal protective equipment,” Camp said.

He also discussed the concerns about traffic.

Camp said they will look at the traffic statistics and do everything they can to cause the least amount of impact possible.

“I know we talked about construction traffic and working with the local authorities trying to bring that in through more of the industrial area that exists to the south and west of our site,” he said. “So hopefully that would be probably the most intensive period of time that you can see through.”

Camp said if there are any wells located on the property, they will be capped because the facility will not use groundwater. He also said the way water tables work, the facility will not be affected.

The environmental assessment survey of the property did not find any potential hazards in the soil at the site, he explained. If some agricultural treatments were used there in the past, he said they would have washed off at that point in time.

Some residents also questioned why they could not find other Red Wolf data center locations.

Camp said the sites do not carry their name, but instead will display the name of the firm they work for, such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services or Vantage, to name a few.

“It would be those types of companies that actually are named

on the building,” he added. “That’s why you don’t see that. It’s

just the function of how it is that operates.”

Red Wolf currently doesn’t have a data center operating in Georgia, but has one that will be starting construction later this year, he said.

Camp told the audience he would provide some locations for them.

With the project expected to create only about 180 to 200 new jobs, he said it won’t have the affect on the community like a large development with 1,000 jobs.

“Those are permanent jobs. They reside here,” he said. “And we want those to be filled by people that either currently live here or maybe are going to move here.”

After addressing these questions, Dowdy closed the public hearing on the rezoning request and no further action was taken on the matter.

Commissioners will consider acting on the data center rezoning at its regular meeting at 9 a.m., Tuesday, June 10.