Why Should Delaware Care?
Residents have raised many concerns about the energy and environmental impacts of the massive data center project planned for Delaware City. The company behind the project is now trying to convince Delawareans that it would bring more positives than negatives for the state.
A debate over a county proposal to impose new rules onto the hottest industry in the world turned testy during a Tuesday meeting of the New Castle County Council, with members slinging jeers and reprimands toward one another in front of a packed crowd of people.
It ended with the County Council indicating it may end an effort to impose stricter regulations onto a controversial plan to build a massive data center near Delaware City.
At the center of the tension was the question of whether the ordinance that proposes the new regulations for the development of data centers could be applied to the Delaware City facility that is already awaiting county approval.
Dubbed Project Washington, the 6-million-square-foot data center proposal sparked a rebuke from county residents when introduced last summer, with many expressing fear that an energy-hungry facility could place too much demand on an already stressed electricity grid.
But, in recent weeks, some sentiments appear to have shifted, particularly after the developer, Starwood Digital Ventures, won an endorsement from Delaware’s building trades unions.
During Tuesday’s meeting, several county council members also expressed support for Project Washington, by way of their opposition to the ordinance’s retroactivity provision.
What ensued were heated exchanges that exposed deep divisions on the county council. The most dramatic occurred between New Castle County Councilman Kevin Caneco, who supports the ordinance, and several others who oppose it.
At one point, Caneco stated that council members can yell and “try to degrade me on the floor of council all they want. I’m not going to stop speaking in support of this.”
In response, Councilman Jea Street said “Oh, stop crying,” while Councilman Tim Sheldon, a former vice president of the Delaware Building Trades union, mockingly made a violin-playing motion with his arms.
In all, seven council members — Janet Kilpatrick, Valerie George, Sheldon, George Smiley, Street, Brandon Toole and Monique Williams-Johns — all voiced some degree of opposition to the ordinance. If all opposed, it would fail a vote in the 13-member council.
‘Well-established principle of law?’
The debate began jovially enough on Tuesday afternoon with County Councilman Dave Carter noting the big public turnout at the meeting, and stating he couldn’t “remember the last time we had a committee meeting with this much democracy.”
Speaking from the council chamber podium, Carter then introduced the data center ordinance with a presentation that he said could push back against “a considerable amount of misunderstanding and misinformation.”
Carter, who represents the Middletown area, laid out various regulations the ordinance would impose on data centers, including buffer zones to minimize sound for neighbors and a mandate for a type of cooling system that would limit water consumption.
He also said the ordinance would prevent owners of big warehouses in the county from converting their properties to data centers without obtaining permission for county officials.
Carter said his goal was neither to promote nor discourage data centers but to ensure that the county had the right rules in place as development pressures for new massive data centers grow. The councilman recently visited Loudon County, Va., which has earned the nickname “Data Center Alley” for hosting the most data centers anywhere in the world, to learn more about how to manage the burgeoning industry.
The data center industry today is booming as developers chasing the riches of the artificial intelligence industry build facilities across the country. During his presentation, Carter called that “irrational exuberance.”
“Either shape data center development, or it will shape you,” he said.
While Carter wrote the ordinance in a way that restricts data centers generally, he also said its applicability to Project Washington is legal through what he called a “well-established principle of law” called the pending ordinance doctrine.
He also said the county had used that doctrine recently with a septic moratorium that applied largely to farmers. Then, he turned to skeptics on the council asking why it shouldn’t also apply “to billion-dollar data centers.”
Following the comments, council members took turns presenting their views. And a majority appeared to oppose the retroactivity provision.
Councilman George Smiley called it “the stumbling block” to the ordinance.
Street went further, calling it illegal.
Councilman Penrose Hollins, who previously had been a co-sponsor of the ordinance, also questioned the legality of retroactivity, saying it could cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation.
He also noted that he had received several emails recently in support of Project Washington, including from organized labor.
“We cannot ignore people who live in this county,” Hollins said.
Caneco pushed back, and held up a copy of a court ruling from 2002 that he said shows that a locality can weigh a public interest when deciding whether to make regulations retroactive.
But, by the end of the meeting, those pleas didn’t appear to sway his colleagues.
Finally, Carter said he is open to a compromise. If opponents would support his ordinance to regulate data centers without applying the rules to pending plans, he would agree to remove the retroactivity component.
“If it’s gonna get me a couple of votes,” he said, “it’s gone.”
