• Sanford is holding a public hearing on a set of rules for data centers on April 21. The rules are a great start, but have some serious holes. Some of the rules are great (like no 24/7 generators!). However, we need the time to continue collaborating to make rules that truly protect the community. Here are the

TOP 5 Reasons Why Sanford Should Pass a Data Center Moratorium On April 21 (Printable version: Click here for talking points

1. High Electric bills: The rules do not protect against increased electric bills for local residents

• What can the city do? Limiting a data center’s electricity usage. Clay County, NC limits data centers to 2MW. Anything over 10MW per year is considered a hyperscale data center.
  Do we really need to welcome a massive hyperscale data center to Sanford?
• A moratorium would give time for NC’s legislature to fix the law that forces regular customers to pay for some of the fuel to power data centers & other big customers.

2. Lost local tax revenue: earlier this month the NC Commerce Department released a report showing that state and local governments are losing billions of dollars because of tax exemptions for data centers.

• A bill is drafted for ending this tax exemption, and the legislature is about to come back in session.
• Allowing data centers under current laws, could make Sanford lose out on important tax revenue.

3. We don’t need more toxic chemicals in our water. In a data center closed-loop water cooling system, many chemicals (including PFAS), can be added to the water. When it’s time to replace the water in the system, those chemicals go into the wastewater.

• TriRiver Water does not currently treat its wastewater, and won’t have a system in place until 2028. So even if they have enough treatment capacity, they may not be able to prevent more contamination from wastewater. Another good reason to pause.

4. Drought. North Carolina and Sanford are in a historic drought right now. Who gets priority when water is restricted, the people or the data center?

• Sanford and Lee County can place a limit on how large a data center can be. For example, limiting how many megawatts of power use it will accept. That would help lower water use.

5. What is the rush? Unless there is something the city hasn’t shared, there isn’t any data center proposal on the table right now. (Except for the Cumnock site, involving drilling or fracking for gas, & no fracking moratorium has been shared with the public).

• Best practices on how to limit air pollution, noise, increase setbacks, and noise pollution are still being carefully researched in other counties with moratoria. The community should not feel cornered into accepting these rules on this timeline.

The city can get immediate protection from a moratorium, and continue to work on the rules to create regulations with strong public support.

Join your neighbors in calling on the city & county to pass a moratorium on data centers! THERE COULD BE A VOTE ON THE DATA CENTER RULES.... (without a fracking moratorium)... THIS NIGHT. IF THERE WERE ONE MEETING TO GO TO... IT IS THIS ONE!!!

Speaker sign up is from 5-5:50pm

Hearing is at 6pm.

***There is still construction on Weatherspoon. Give yourself extra time to detour down third street, in order to make it to the meeting on time!***