Petition- Lee County: Pass a Moratorium on Fracking, Drilling, & Data Centers

Lee County Commissioners

Deep River Data wants to power an AI data center with gas from Butler Well #3 in Lee County. A North Carolina journalist, Lisa Sorg, reported on this plan in November, 2025: A Company Eyes What Would Be North Carolina’s First Commercial Natural Gas Well.

Butler Well #3 is located near the Lee-Chatham county line, south of U.S. Highway 421, close to Cumnock & Sanford, NC. It is unlikely this well will produce any usable amount of gas without hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). Fracking has never been used in North Carolina.

Deep River Data’s goal is to open up the gas well, and use the methane gas extracted on-site to power an AI data center. Right now, they are working on submitting an application to the NC Oil & Gas Commission, in order to do that.

This would pose serious threats to our drinking water wells, the Deep River, and our children’s health. The air pollution from gas drilling, fracking, refining that gas, and burning it 24/7 in gas generators to power a data center would harm local residents’ health. The very few jobs these industries provide & riskiness of this investment threaten our county's economic progress.

To: Lee County Commissioners
From: [Your Name]

Dear Lee County Commissioners,

We urge you to pass a moratorium on conventional drilling, fracking, and data centers in Lee County.

We, the undersigned, have profound concerns about Deep River Data’s intention to extract shale gas to power a data center for artificial intelligence. This type of project has never been done before in North Carolina. Passing a moratorium will give the county time to study the impacts of fracking combined with onsite gas refining, power generation, & an AI data center. This also gives the county time to determine how best to protect its people and valuable natural resources from this new type of land use.

The air, water, and noise pollution that would come with this project would put our health and our economy at risk. Lee County’s geology puts us at great risk of groundwater contamination since the shale gas is very close to the groundwater. Fractures from gas extraction are known to travel up to 2,000 feet–greater than the distance between the gas and the groundwater in Lee County.

Right now, Lee County is growing and just ended 2025 financially ahead. A damaging set of industrial projects like this puts future growth at risk. Doing nothing while a proposal to drill or frack to power an AI data center moves through the application process could leave the county with few options to regulate this industrial project later.

Now is the time to act and pass a moratorium.