What are some of the ways that a proposed hyper-scale data center could impact where you live? I’m asking that question in person or on social media and preparing sound bites for upcoming news interviews. I’ve been talking to town councilors, activists, and homeowners. Here are some thoughts:
An Apex Town Councilman said, “Apex is one of the most desirable places to live in the world. We’re definitely not desperate for industry to build here. Don’t experiment with our community.”
Another member of the Town Council said, “residents pay 82% of taxes so we need more industry to help contribute and give tax relief.”
Jason Wadsworth is a neighbor who lives near Old Highway 1 adjacent and west of the data center proposed location said to me on Facebook, “Not enough was said concerning the possible contamination of well water and who’s responsibility that would fall to for remediation or compensation. With buildings that tall they’ll have even deeper footings. This only increases the chance of hitting our aquifer source. Once this happens there’s no going back. There is no option for city water out here. Plus not being on city water was one of the reasons for moving out here. We chose to be out here. Now Apex has put us in their etj (extraterritorial jurisdiction). We can’t vote on any decisions that directly affect us but they can right up to our front door.”
According to NPR, “Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are set to spend $400 billion just this year on AI, and that's mostly on data centers. OpenAI says it wants to spend more than $1 trillion on data centers in the coming years. But the rub is that most AI chatbots - so ChatGPT and the rest - are not making money.”
Our democracy and constitution built on the rule of law are eroding away. We paid taxes to achieve a high standard of living that are being diverted. Health, safety, and environmental laws and regulations are being ignored by government and industry in efforts to rapidly build AI hyper scale data centers.
Based on executive actions from 2025, the following executive orders (EOs) and strategic plans directly support the rapid development, permitting, and construction of data centers, particularly those focused on artificial intelligence (AI):
Executive Order 14318: Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure (July 23, 2025)
This is the primary directive aimed at speeding up the development of large-scale AI data centers (those over 100 megawatts) and supporting energy infrastructure.
Key Provisions: Streamlines environmental reviews, expands FAST-41 coverage for projects, and directs the use of federal, military, contaminated (Brownfield), and Superfund sites for data center construction.
Impact: Rescinds previous requirements (specifically EO 14141) that imposed climate and DEI-related constraints on data center development.
America's AI Action Plan (July 23, 2025)
A comprehensive strategic framework released alongside the EOs that identifies the rapid buildout of data centers and energy infrastructure as critical to U.S. competitiveness.
Key Provisions: Focuses on reducing regulatory barriers and promoting the construction of data centers and semiconductor facilities.
Executive Order 14320: Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack (July 23, 2025)
Supports the data center ecosystem by promoting U.S.-made AI technology globally, aiming to strengthen the international market position for U.S. data center infrastructure.
Executive Order 14179: Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (January 2025)
Initiated the shift towards deregulation and industry-driven growth for AI, laying the groundwork for later infrastructure-specific orders.
Executive Order: Launching the Genesis Mission (November 24, 2025)
Directs the Department of Energy to build an integrated AI platform, which includes expanding data center and computing resources.
Key Implementation Actions Supporting the EOs:
DOE Site Selection: The Department of Energy identified 16 federal sites (including Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, and Savannah River Site) for potential rapid data center construction and energy co-location.
Defense Production Act: The administration has signaled the potential use of the Defense Production Act to accelerate the infrastructure needed for these projects.
The proposed data center in Apex-New Hill is currently on 190 acres of farmland zoned for residential use. The site currently allows for natural groundwater recharge used by homeowners on well water. We can’t go on private property so have no idea what endangered species live here. There needs to be an environmental impact statement prepared so we can know the potential impacts before the project goes further. The rules keep changing in favor of industry and we’re very concerned with how this is affecting our lives.
The town is considering annexation and rezoning to light industrial and we don’t agree that an AI hyper scale data center would be light industrial; it would be very heavy industrial. Using 300 MW equivalent to one-third of the Sharon Harris NPP could also power about 200,000 homes. Not only do they take power from the electrical grid, the tech company would build backup power currently proposed using diesel generators. The developer proposes four buildings each one is twice the size of a Walmart Superstore and twice as tall! Deep excavations will dislodge sediments that can contaminate people’s well water.
People in the adjacent neighborhood have been able to smell sewage from the adjacent water treatment plant. So we are concerned with many sources of pollution to the air, bright lights, loud sounds running 24/7 affecting people, pets and wildlife, and water. They propose using about one million gallons per day of reclaimed water for cooling the computer equipment. But that depends on adequate water supplies being available coming from Jordan Lake. The drought over the past five months lowered the lake level by 6.5 feet. About one-third of that water is evaporated so that will be a loss to the Cape Fear River and put wastewater mist into the air which can cause people to get sick. Data centers use forever chemicals like PFAS in cooling systems!
Overall, living near data centers with diesel generators can increase rates of asthma and other health problems. This will not be one and done and usually data centers are built in corridors which could stretch for many miles towards Chatham county. The question were asking is will Apex motto continue of being the peak of good living?
Update February 5, 2026
We’re in the news discussing data centers with WRAL climate change reporter Liz McLaughlin. She provided an extended podcast interview with Jaylin Jones titled How Data Centers Are Quietly Reshaping North Carolina which aired on the 6 pm news last night as well as the following online article:
The hidden costs of North Carolina’s data center boom
WRAL: “A surge of AI data centers is driving up power and water demand across North Carolina, increasing emissions and electricity costs for customers.
The windowless buildings rising across North Carolina look more like warehouses than engines of climate change.
They have no smokestacks and no obvious emissions. But inside, thousands of servers run nonstop, generating heat that must be cooled and consuming electricity at a rate that can rival entire cities. As artificial intelligence accelerates a wave of massive new facilities across the state, utilities and regulators are confronting a growing reality: North Carolina’s race to power AI is colliding with its climate goals and could reshape water use, emissions and electricity costs for decades.
Across the state, proposals for hyperscale data centers built to support artificial intelligence and cloud computing are driving unprecedented demand for electricity and water. That surge is already reshaping long-term energy planning, delaying coal plant retirements and raising new questions about who bears the environmental and financial costs of keeping the grid running.
The issue comes down to scale
A single hyperscale data center can draw hundreds of megawatts of electricity and use enormous volumes of water during peak summer heat. A 300-megawatt data center can use as much electricity as roughly 200,000 North Carolina homes running nonstop, based on U.S. Energy Information Administration household consumption data.
Multiply that by dozens of facilities, some operating and many more proposed, and the cumulative impact becomes difficult to ignore.
“We’re talking about electricity use in the hundreds of megawatts for individual sites,” said Jackson Ewing, director of energy and climate policy at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability. “That kind of load growth changes everything about how you plan a grid.”
Yet North Carolina does not maintain a comprehensive inventory of data centers operating within its borders, according to state officials. Some facilities are intentionally undisclosed for security reasons. Others are evaluated individually through local zoning and state permitting processes, even as their combined effects extend far beyond municipal boundaries.
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality says environmental reviews are conducted on a permit-by-permit basis, covering specific components such as diesel generators, stormwater runoff and reclaimed water use. Those permits do not require developers to disclose total statewide water consumption, aggregate emissions tied to electricity generation, or how multiple facilities may collectively strain shared water supplies, air quality or the power grid.
The result is rapid expansion without a clear statewide accounting of what it means for emissions, water resources and long-term infrastructure.
A local fight with statewide implications
In New Hill, a rural community in southern Wake County, residents recently learned of a proposal for a sprawling digital campus along Shearon Harris Road, not far from the Harris Nuclear Plant. The plan calls for four data center buildings, each roughly the size of a Super Walmart, creating an industrial footprint that would span nearly 200 acres.
The developer, Natelli Holdings LLC, says on its project website that the campus would generate millions of dollars in tax revenue and create about 275 permanent jobs.
Project materials show the facility could use up to 1 million gallons of reclaimed water per day during peak summer heat to cool servers.
Residents say they were shocked by the size and scope of the project.
“We’re being asked to accept something industrial on a scale we’ve never seen here, without clear answers about the long-term impacts,” said Billy Dam, who lives nearby.
Ralph Ripper, a firefighter who lives about 3,200 feet from the proposed site, worries about diesel backup generators, emergency response capacity and what the development could mean for the area’s environmental footprint.
“This isn’t just about noise or traffic,” Ripper said. “It’s about water, air quality and energy costs, and once it’s built, there’s no undo button.”
Michael Natelli, president of Natelli Holdings, said in an email that average daily water use is expected to be significantly lower than peak estimates, roughly 300,000 to 450,000 gallons per day. About one-third of that water would evaporate during the cooling process and would not be returned to the Cape Fear River basin.
Natelli said peak water use would likely occur only on the hottest days of the year, with significantly lower use during cooler months and little to no water use at times in winter. He said current estimates are based on historical data from comparable facilities, not future climate projections, and that final water needs could change as the project design advances and an end user is identified.
Natelli added that the project remains in the rezoning phase with the Town of Apex, with a decision now expected in late summer or early fall.
Power demand collides with climate goals
Concerns like those in New Hill are playing out across the state, from rural counties west of Charlotte, now home to massive facilities operated by companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta, to smaller, faster “edge” data centers proposed near urban centers like Raleigh.
What distinguishes the current wave, researchers say, is artificial intelligence.
Unlike traditional cloud computing, training and operating large AI models requires far more electricity and produces significantly more heat, intensifying both power and water demands.
“This is not business as usual,” Ewing said. “AI is the accelerant.”
The data center surge comes as Duke Energy, North Carolina’s largest utility, is revising long-term plans to meet rising electricity demand.
In a recent filing, Duke projects electricity demand will grow roughly eight times faster over the next 15 years than it did over the previous 15, driven by a mix of population growth, industrial development and large new customers such as data centers.
To meet that demand in the near term, Duke says it will rely more heavily on fossil fuels, including keeping some coal-fired power plants online longer than previously planned and building new natural gas plants, with one in Catawba County set to begin construction this year.
“The delayed retirement of some coal-fired power stations alone will add millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere,” Ewing said.
Those costs often land with customers.
Under North Carolina’s utility model, expenses for new power plants, transmission lines and grid upgrades are typically spread across ratepayers. While Duke Energy says large customers like data centers pay for the direct cost of connecting their facilities to the grid, broader system upgrades needed to meet rising demand are shared.
“There’s a real fairness question here,” said Harrison Fell, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at North Carolina State University. “Why should households shoulder more of the burden for infrastructure built to serve some of the wealthiest companies in the world?”
Water, heat and the limits of planning
Beyond electricity, water is emerging as a central concern, especially as climate change intensifies heat waves and increases drought risk.
Many data centers rely on water-based cooling systems. While operators often emphasize the use of reclaimed wastewater rather than drinking water, the volume involved can still be significant.
In Apex, the town’s water resources director, Jonathan Jacobs, said a peak demand of about 1 million gallons per day, the level cited for the proposed New Hill campus, would equal roughly one-fifth of Apex’s average daily water use.
Even when reclaimed water is used, Jacobs said, evaporative cooling represents a net loss to the river basin.
“That water is not returned downstream after treatment,” Jacobs said. “Regardless of whether it’s reclaimed or domestic water, evaporation removes it from the system.”
Jacobs said Apex currently has enough capacity to serve a facility of that size, but adding a continuous large user would shorten the timeline for future water supply expansions and reduce flexibility as the region grows.
“If multiple significant users locate in the same service area, it becomes a regional question about water allocation and growth priorities,” Jacobs said. “Our water sources are finite.”
State environmental regulators say they review permits on a site-by-site basis, including air permits for generators and water permits for cooling and discharge. But without centralized tracking of data centers, critics argue it is difficult to assess cumulative impacts on water supplies, air quality and emissions statewide.
For now, much of the planning happens in silos, local zoning boards here, utility commissions there, even as the stakes extend far beyond individual communities.
“That water is not returned downstream after treatment,” Jacobs said. “Regardless of whether it’s reclaimed or domestic water, evaporation removes it from the system.”
Jacobs said Apex currently has enough capacity to serve a facility of that size, but adding a continuous large user would shorten the timeline for future water supply expansions and reduce flexibility as the region grows.
“If multiple significant users locate in the same service area, it becomes a regional question about water allocation and growth priorities,” Jacobs said. “Our water sources are finite.”
State environmental regulators say they review permits on a site-by-site basis, including air permits for generators and water permits for cooling and discharge. But without centralized tracking of data centers, critics argue it is difficult to assess cumulative impacts on water supplies, air quality and emissions statewide.
For now, much of the planning happens in silos, local zoning boards here, utility commissions there, even as the stakes extend far beyond individual communities.
In New Hill, residents are urging officials to slow down.
“We’re not anti-technology,” Ripper said. “We’re asking for transparency and a plan that makes sense for the future we’re building.”
For a state betting its economic future on both clean energy and cutting-edge computing, the question is whether it can do both at once without quietly locking in higher emissions, heavier water use and higher power bills along the way.”
Update February 24, 2026
The American Prospect magazine interviewed me last week to discuss how my opposition to hyper-scale data center development is impacting the Congressional race in my district. The article clearly shows the problems for both major political parties accepting funding by super PAC including from big tech corporations. Here are my responses to the editor David Dayen’s questions but I hope readers of this blog will read the entire article as I’ve removed some reference links and I'm posting the excerpt to remind and document my interactions:
An LLC called Natelli Investments has planned to use 190 acres of farmland near the small community of New Hill, about 20 miles from Durham, for a hyperscale data center called the Digital Campus. “My house is about two miles from the site,” said Bill Dam, a retired environmental scientist. “I was open-minded about it at first, but after the federal, state, and local promotion of data centers, I got opposed to it.”
The Digital Campus, composed of four large buildings, would consume about 300 megawatts of electricity, which Dam said is three times as much power as the surrounding communities of New Hill and Apex use on an annual basis; it’s also close to one-third of the total power supply of the nearby Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant. In addition, the data center would maintain backup power from 100 diesel generators, which critics fear could be regularly employed to stabilize the energy grid during times of high demand, leading to toxic pollution, according to Dam.
Local officials would have to rezone the property as “light industrial” from the current residential designation to enable the data center. And regional utility Duke Energy has announced that it would extend the life of a coal-fired power plant in the area to deal with the expanded energy demand. The state is exempting sales and use taxes for data centers, and the city of Apex covets the property taxes. “But that’s not nearly enough to cover damages to the air and water and land,” Dam said.
Dam has joined a number of residents at town council meetings in protesting the data center, which has not revealed which Big Tech companies it has signed to use the facility. Activists raise concerns about rising electricity costs, pollutants from the diesel generators, and downstream effects of AI on job losses in a multitude of fields. This aligns with other local fights; Chatham County, which is part of the district, imposed a 12-month moratorium on data centers and crypto mining just last week.
About 250 voters sent an open letter to Fourth District candidates in recent days, asking them to oppose the Digital Campus projects and any other data centers in the area. It also called on candidates to “reject any donations or Super PAC support from the big tech lobby, especially AI executives and companies.” It cites the support Bankman-Fried’s PAC gave to Foushee in 2022.
“We must feel confident that our Congressmember—regardless of party or ideology—will put our community’s interests above those of corporations or billionaires,” the letter reads.
Foushee has not yet responded to the letter, though she has said that residents’ concerns are “serious” and “demand rigorous analysis and transparency.” Dam said that he has approached Foushee’s office about the issue and they “haven’t responded in a way that satisfies me at all … Anybody supporting AI companies, making it easier for a few billionaires to become richer, they don’t represent the people.”
Update March 4, 2026
Another similar story and interview came out in The Guardian written by Dharna Noor regarding the political race with interviews from Michelle and me:
“Foushee’s Anthropic-tied funding has drawn sharp criticism from constituents opposing Maryland-based Natelli Investments’ plan to build a sprawling 190-acre (75-hectare) datacenter near Apex, 20 miles (32km) south-west of Raleigh.
The developer has not said which companies will use the facility.
The proposal has sparked pushback over energy and water use and potential increases in toxic and planet-warming emissions. Some 5,000 people have signed a petition opposing it.
“Between the electricity, the water issues, air quality, health, noise pollution,” said Michelle O’Connor, who lives roughly 1.5 miles from the proposed datacenter and has a health sciences PhD, “I have yet to find a solid reason why this is good for Apex.”
It would also require about 300 megawatts of electricity – roughly three times the annual consumption of Apex and nearby New Hill combined, said Bill Dam, a retired environmental scientist who lives two miles from the site.
“It’s not in our interests to see this project go through,” he said.
The facility would draw power from a nearby nuclear plant and rely on 100 diesel generators for backup. If used frequently to stabilize the grid during high demand, those generators will produce toxic and planet-warming emissions, Dam warned.