BOTETOURT COUNTY, Va. – As Google’s proposed data center project in Botetourt County moves forward, environmental groups and local officials continue to debate the facility’s potential impact on the region’s resources, while residents have concerns.
The Botetourt Center at Greenfield could soon be home to Southwest Virginia’s first major data center, with Google planning to invest at least a billion dollars in what county officials are calling a transformational project.
Local residents have expressed frustration with the lack of transparency surrounding the project.
“We don’t know what to expect for noise levels, water usage, energy usage, any of that. And we don’t even know how many buildings there’s going to be,” said Austen Schwend, a Botetourt resident and former candidate for state assembly. “The information you do get, it doesn’t add up.”
Schwend further emphasized the public’s right to know: “Well, there’s a whole host of problems and then a lot of them you don’t really know how deep they go. So we’ve got massive questions about water usage, which of course is something the public should be worried about, even if you have a well and you’re not on public water.”
Another resident, Greg Rieley, questioned both the economic benefits promised to the community and the transparency of local officials. “History shows us throughout the United States these Google centers are not economic booms for these small communities,” said Rieley. “They keep telling us it will keep our taxes low, but the taxes have done nothing but go up.”
Rieley’s frustrations extend to public meetings as well. “Every time that we go to board meetings and ask questions, whether it’s a Board of Supervisors or the Southwest Virginia Water Authority, we run up against the same wall,” he added.
The project has recently become embroiled in controversy over water usage transparency. According to The Roanoke Rambler, the Western Virginia Water Authority is appealing a November 5 court ruling that ordered the release of water usage estimates for the facility. Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Leisa Ciaffone ruled that water usage information is not proprietary and should be public, writing that “there are few resources more precious than water” and emphasizing the public’s “overwhelming interest” in how officials manage water resources.
A draft agreement that leaked in July, as reported by Cardinal News, indicated the facility could use between 2 million and 8 million gallons of water daily — seven to 30 times more than the water authority’s current largest customer, the Coca-Cola bottling plant. Officials have indicated that water will initially come from Carvins Cove, with governments earmarking up to $300 million for a new water source that Google would fund.
According to the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors, Google purchased a 312-acre parcel in the Botetourt Center at Greenfield earlier this year, marking a significant step toward establishing the county’s first data center campus. The project comes at a time when the Commonwealth hosts over one-third of the world’s data centers, with the majority concentrated in Northern Virginia.
Environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter, have raised concerns about the facility’s water consumption. The organization’s latest environmental impact report indicates that a single large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water daily for cooling purposes — equivalent to the water supply needed for 50,000 people. Sierra Club data shows that existing data centers across Virginia consumed over 2.1 billion gallons of water in 2023.
The project’s impact on utility rates has also emerged as a significant concern. In Northern Virginia, Dominion Energy has proposed rate increases that would add $21.43 to monthly residential bills by 2027, partly due to infrastructure needs for data centers.
In response to mounting concerns, Botetourt County issued a comprehensive statement: “New technology can raise understandable questions, and our goal is to provide residents with clear, accessible information about what this project means for Botetourt County and how the proposed data center built in the Botetourt Center at Greenfield differs from others being built across the Nation. Google’s investment represents a significant opportunity to strengthen our long-term revenue base. A facility of this scale can generate substantial business personal property and real estate tax income—supporting schools, public safety, and other core services relied on by residents every day. In addition to direct high-wage jobs at the project site, data centers also create indirect employment and investment opportunities throughout the region. Google’s presence further serves as a magnet for other high-value, regional investments benefiting both graduates and the area’s growing medical research sector. To ensure transparency, we are in the process of developing a new website that will explain how the technology works, address common concerns, and outline both benefits and considerations in one place.”
Officials maintain that the project’s location within an existing industrial park will minimize disruption to the area’s rural character, and noise studies will be conducted during the design phase to ensure neighboring properties aren’t adversely affected.
While the county says it’s developing a new website to address concerns, some residents remain skeptical. As Schwend put it, “These things just get announced to us or they’re voted on completely in the background.”
The timeline for the data center’s construction remains undetermined, as final permits and approvals are still pending.