Two Virginia state senators have pre-filed a data center moratorium bill ahead of next year’s general assembly session.
Democrats Russet Perry and Danica Roem, who represent Loudoun and Prince William respectively, say their bill would prohibit any new data center in Virginia from July 1 of next year through July 1 of 2030.
The pause is needed until Virginia establishes real protective measures surrounding data centers, according to Sen. Perry. Some of those protections would address environmental concerns.
Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality is embarking on a new project to monitor streams and rivers near the data center alley in Loudoun County. This project was created and is led by three local high school students.
“They [data centers] use cooling agents and when it rains the water sometimes takes the cooling agents with them. And since it can’t penetrate the ground right next to data centers, it runs off into streams,” Adhvik Raj, one of the students behind this project, said.
One of the challenges to addressing data center chemical runoff was the lack of effective data on how these chemicals are damaging streams, wildlife and the habitats around the centers. So, the students built a device to collect the effective data needed.
“This is like completely out of school, maybe on our weekends,” Raj said.
“Because Loudoun County is the homeland of data centers throughout the entire world, as students – or as people in general – we should be able to do something to help our government out, help our people out, and to try to solve the issue in a better way,” Karthik Uppalapati, one of the 16-year-olds pioneering this initiative, said.
A Loudon County grant funded their sensor, which officials will put in streams around the county to test for various chemical levels over several months.
First, they’ll test a stream that is not near a data center alley for comparison. “If we see those differences, we can attribute some of that difference to the data center itself,” Priyanshu Kanhere, who is working with the other two students to develop this device, said.
Their work has caught the attention of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality, which is coordinating a gameplan with the students.
This research, created and conducted by three 16-year-olds, could ultimately lead to new policies and regulations aimed at protecting our environment.
“It feels rewarding that we’re doing something, it’s meaningful,” Raj said.
They’re growing up in a data center alley and working to make their home, and perhaps an entire industry, cleaner and safer for the next generation.