The Lumberton City Council on Monday unanimously approved rules that could pave the way for a data center, despite residents’ concerns about the potential impact on local water supplies, the environment, and electricity rates.
“This is not about choosing between economic development and protecting our citizens,” City Council member John Cantey Jr. told the crowd of about 110 residents who attended Monday’s council meeting. “It’s about determining whether we can responsibly accomplish both.”
Cantey’s comments drew groans and outcries from the crowd. A Lumberton police officer removed three residents from the meeting for trying to address the council outside the public comment period.
Eight residents spoke against the ordinance, which limits any data centers to the Southeast Crossroads Industrial Park at the interchange of Interstates 95 and 74. It also sets requirements for buildings, noise, and water-efficient technologies. Others in the crowd held up signs reading “Press pause on data centers” and “No data centers.”
Those who spoke raised many of the same concerns discussed at last week’s community meeting about the proposed ordinance. They asked about the impact a data center would have on the city’s water plant, the Lumber River, and local electricity rates.
“It’s good to have an ordinance for data centers,” the Rev. Mac Legerton, co-director of the Robeson County Cooperative for Sustainable Development, told the council on Monday. “The problem is this data center ordinance lacks detail, and it lacks some of the best practices that government recommends and that community development organizations recommend.”
Legerton said he had hoped the council would delay the ordinance until it added a provision requiring a community-benefits agreement between the city and any future data center developer. The ordinance should also give the city greater control over a data center’s practices, he said, including whether it uses a closed-loop cooling system and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which have been linked to an increased risk of cancer, thyroid disease, reproductive problems, and developmental delays in children, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Until the ordinance is strengthened, the city of Lumberton will be vulnerable to predatory data companies who want to take advantage of weak regulations and missing details,” Legerton told Border Belt Independent after the council’s vote.
Lumberton staff spent months drafting the ordinance. Deputy City Manager Brandon Love told the council that they used draft ordinances from Bladen County and the city of Fayetteville as a starting point. He also said they consulted the UNC School of Government and the city’s utility officials.
The nearest homes are about a mile from the industrial park. The new Robeson County Career and Technical Education Center is about 2 miles away.
The ordinance limits the noise coming from a data center to 65 decibels, the same level generated by a business office. If any facility exceeds the limit, it must “implement mitigation measures,” according to the ordinance. Other provisions require that a data center “utilize water-efficient cooling technologies” and submit annual energy usage reports to the city.
Love said it was important for the City Council to pass the ordinance on Monday. Without rules in place, he said, the city would be obliged to approve a data center project anywhere already zoned for manufacturing, or face a lawsuit over an arbitrary denial.
A developer has already approached the city about building a data center, City Manager Wayne Horne previously told Border Belt Independent. Codenamed Project Alps, Horne said the data center would be in the industrial park and use 50 megawatts of power and 50,000 gallons of water per day.
“The ordinance before you today, is it perfect? Perhaps not,” Love told the council. “Is it the best job that we could do? Absolutely.”
Cantey and other council members said a data center would provide a much-needed economic boost in Lumberton. Several council members toured Apple’s data center in Maiden, a Catawba County town about an hour outside of Charlotte and home to 3,700 people. That data center, built in 2009, generates millions of dollars per year in property tax revenue for the town, PBS North Carolina reported earlier this year.
During Monday’s meeting, council member Eric Chavis initially made a motion opposing the ordinance. The motion failed, and Chavis voted along with his peers to approve it after Cantey asked city staff to form a small resident committee to help determine what community benefits a data center should bring to the city.
Two residents spoke in favor of the ordinance on Monday: James Martin, representing the Robeson County Committee of 100, a nonprofit that supports economic development, and Jeffrey Lambdin, who lives in Lumberton.
“More people have expressed support for the facilities than those who have opposed it to me,” said City Council member Leroy Rising. “However, they are not willing to voice their support out of fear of others who are vocal.”