Hanover County, VA: five data center proposals

Dominant grievance and the only one a supervisor named as decisive. Stoneman: 'I do think the water concern is a valid issue here.' On record: 600,000 gpd avg / 2M gpd peak (Mountain Road), 700,000 gpd reserved (Hickory Hill), 10,500 gpd claimed (Hunting Hawk), closed-loop adopted (Iron Horse). Structural amplifier: Hanover buys 20 MGD from Richmond under a contract expiring June 2035 and suffered outages from Richmond's Jan 2025 plant failure; long-term fixes cost $424-543M.

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Strong at state level, thinner locally. Site facts: 900 MW each at Mountain Road and Hunting Hawk, 2.4 GW at Hickory Hill, a 500-kV line crossing Hunting Hawk. But the Nov 2025 SCC order created a 25 MW rate class with 14-year terms and exit fees, and the Aug 2026 order created GS-5 with directly assigned upgrades. No Hanover speaker was recorded making a specific quantified rate-impact claim.

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Hanover decided three projects and is deciding a fourth with NO adopted data center ordinance; the county's own schedule does not reach Board adoption until December 2027. Resident: 'Standards first, approval second.' Comp-plan-amendment objection was the operative ground at Hunting Hawk. Process artifacts: capped 46-speaker registration with 69/69/69-minute allocations, a balloon test, an applicant deferral requested one hour before a hearing.

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Every figure is applicant- or supporter-supplied and they conflict. Mountain Road: 300-350 permanent (Tract); construction reported at 1,000 (developer) vs 1,100+ (attributed to a construction worker speaking in favor). Hunting Hawk: 'at least 420 jobs' with revenue reported as $8-12M/yr vs $6.5M then $11.9M/yr. Iron Horse 2026: no jobs figure at all. No independently verified employment or fiscal figure exists for any project. JLARC found 48c returned per $1 abated.

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Named as the operative reason for the Hunting Hawk denial: the commission found it 'did not fit Hanover's rural character.' Tract's $6M conservation/parks/Chickahominy-trail proffer was a direct response. Bundled with the Ashcake Landfill and the 1,300-acre Luck Stone quarry at the 22 Apr 2026 Earth Day rally, so the conservation frame is broader than data centers.

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Consistently raised, never quantified by the county. Neighbors For Change documented low-frequency noise and 300 diesel generators at 75-150 monthly testing hours, but that is an advocacy-source claim. No Hanover noise study, no adopted decibel limit, no measured data. Score capped by the total absence of local measurement.

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Present in tone, rarely explicit. Petition: 'nowhere in our community is safe from industrial development.' NAACP chapter president: 'Our community's heartbeat is more important than a data center.' Structurally reinforced by the absent-tenant problem: no tenant was ever named for any of the three contested projects, and opponents objected to the 'speculative nature with unknown end user.'

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Raised at every hearing and decisive in 2024; Commissioner Abbott: 'Right now, I think the traffic is a problem.' ~1,500 daily trips at Mountain Road. The counter-argument is on record and used by applicants: Condlin argued data centers are 'a better option because it's less traffic' against a by-right mixed-use alternative, and the HHHunt residential replacement generates 1,000 daily trips itself.

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Land-conversion evidence is solid; wildlife evidence is thin. 427-430 acres mostly undeveloped and wooded; 1,200 acres at Hickory Hill; Earth Day rally focused on woodland and wetland destruction. Wildlife proper appears essentially once. No habitat study, no species claim, no wetlands delineation dispute located.

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Weakly evidenced locally. Only proximate claims: Mayers on pollution/emissions, Bruner on 'contaminated vapor,' Neighbors For Change on low-frequency noise. No health study, no DEQ air permit dispute, no medical testimony entered the Hanover record.

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The 17 Nov 2025 community meeting drew 450+ residents from Hanover, Henrico AND Goochland; Henrico Citizen headlined 'hundreds of Henrico, Hanover residents.' The Dominion Club's GM and Wyndham residents formally opposed a project in a neighboring county. Tract carried the fight into Goochland by July 2026. Both articles carrying the strongest evidence are paywalled, which caps confidence.

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Polarity is inverted, the market's most counterintuitive finding. The only substantive on-record schools argument is PRO-data-center: Commissioner Leadbetter, 'It eliminates burden on schools, EMS and law enforcement.' No Hanover parent, teacher or school board member is quoted, and Hanover County Public Schools took no position.

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Listed among concerns at the May 2026 Board hearing and Floyd raised building-to-home proximity buffers. But not a single Hanover speaker is quoted anywhere making a property-value claim, no appraisal study, no realtor testimony, no assessment data entered the record. Present as a category label, absent as evidence.

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Essentially no evidence found. Across every hearing account, rally report, petition text and quoted resident statement retrieved, AI is not mentioned once. The nearest adjacent sentiment is technological-obsolescence scepticism: Walton, 'Data centers is something that's going to be obsolete in five to eight years from now.'

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Largely a no-evidence-found result and the record actively cuts against it. No Hanover NDA, confidentiality agreement, FOIA dispute or closed-session controversy located. Supervisor Dibble: 'I believe it's transparent, and this process makes a good project better.' What exists is the weaker adjacent grievance of no named end user.

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