The Piedmont News is an email digest of top news stories about conservation, land use, energy, and environmental matters of interest to the region. We hope you’ll share The Piedmont News with someone else who cares about these stories.
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Rappahannock News
(May 22, 2025)
"Two Civil War battlefields in and around Northern Virginia have been named to Preservation Virginia’s 2025 list of the state’s most endangered historic places, with the nonprofit citing the growing threat posed by data center development. Manassas National Battlefield Park in Prince William County and Wilderness Battlefied in Orange County are among 11 sites identified in this year’s report. Both are located near large-scale data center projects that have already been approved, including the 2,100-acre Prince William Digital Gateway in western Prince William."
This article quotes Piedmont Environmental Council Director of Land Use Julie Bolthouse.
Fauquier Now
(May 22, 2025)
"The Warrenton Planning Commission is recommending removing data centers as a permissible use in the town’s industrial zoning district. The proposed amendment will strike all references to data centers from Articles 3, 9 and 12 of the town zoning ordinance at the direction of the Warrenton Town Council. Data centers are currently allowed in Warrenton’s industrial districts through special use permits."
MIT Technology Review
(May 20, 2025)
"AI’s integration into our lives is the most significant shift in online life in more than a decade. Hundreds of millions of people now regularly turn to chatbots for help with homework, research, coding, or to create images and videos. But what’s powering all of that? Today, new analysis by MIT Technology Review provides an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy the AI industry uses—down to a single query—to trace where its carbon footprint stands now, and where it’s headed, as AI barrels towards billions of daily users."
Inside Climate News
(May 19, 2025)
"As Elena Schlossberg of Prince William County, Virginia, sees it, the community effort to fight the richest companies in the world seeking to build data centers began about a decade ago when opposition coalesced in the early days of the industry’s development. Then, a couple of years ago, when people began to learn much more about the warehouse-like server farms proliferating at double the earlier rate, the fight strengthened with a meeting in Warrenton."
This article features The Piedmont Environmental Council and the Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition.
Rappahannock News
(May 17, 2025)
"From a distance, it looks like a large puddle, likely a remnant of a recent rain, shadowed by a copse of trees. A branch lies partly submerged. Nothing remarkable. But, as Nick Lapham approaches the water, with a quickening step, it’s clear that there is more here. Much more."
Nick Lapham will be a panelist at The Piedmont Environmental Council's Annual Gathering on June 8.
Fauquier Times
(May 16, 2025)
"Chris Colvin spent two years fighting a data center proposed near her family’s historic farm in Fauquier County. Now, she’s having nightmares about another threat to their land: Dominion Energy’s new, high-power transmission line needed to feed data centers outside the county. Since learning Dominion is considering a route alongside the rear of their 268-year-old farm — about '20 yards from where I put my head on my pillow,' she says — she’s woken her husband with shouts of 'No! Stop! Help!'"
This article quotes Piedmont Environmental Council Director of Land Use Julie Bolthouse.
The New York Times
(May 16, 2025)
"Individuals and small business have been paying more for power in recent years, and their electricity rates may climb higher still. That’s because the cost of the power plants, transmission lines and other equipment that utilities need to serve data centers, factories and other large users of electricity is likely to be spread to everybody who uses electricity, according to a new report. The report by Wood MacKenzie, an energy research firm, examined 20 large power users. In almost all of those cases, the firm found, the money that large energy users paid to electric utilities would not be enough to cover the cost of the equipment needed to serve them. The rest of the costs would be borne by other utility customers or the utility itself."
Utility Dive
(May 15, 2025)
"The U.S. grid is flooded with data center proposals that will never get built. That’s making it much more difficult for utilities and grid operators to plan for the future... This is a problem because, as Giacobone noted, excess requests sap utilities’ limited study resources, cause delays for others in the interconnection queue and distort long-range resource planning, raising the risk of costly system overbuilding."
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(May 23, 2025)
"A blue sky overhead, rows of ripe red strawberries and families filling buckets of freshly-picked berries. Few things in this region say spring like strawberry picking."
The Washington Post
(May 21, 2025)
"I am playing the world’s slowest video game. Sitting in front of a monitor with a technician from the Smithsonian, I am watching the progress of Turtle 4004, known as Roxy. She’s an older box turtle, and a GPS tag on her shell records hourly updates of her location. But box turtles, on average, move only about 2 centimeters per hour — which makes for some obvious tedium for those tracking her progress. The tech reads out updates on Roxy’s peregrinations to me. 7:18 a.m.: She’s on the edge of a field on the property in Castleton, Virginia. 8:18 a.m.: She’s in the same place. 9:18 a.m.: She still hasn’t moved."
The Washington Post
(May 19, 2025)
"Every free meal counts there, said Michael McKee, the CEO of Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, which is the main provider of food assistance to 25 counties in the region. But after the U.S. Department of Agriculture paused $500 million in funding for programs related to food in March, Blue Ridge and other food banks have been struggling to meet the growing needs of their communities."
Inside Climate News
(May 14, 2025)
"But being a good steward of the environment may soon become harder for Good and other farmers if a Trump administration proposal advances to reduce the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, which helps local farmers enact pollution reduction measures on their land."
The Daily Progress
(May 23, 2025)
"Walnut Creek Park just south of Charlottesville will be closed to swimmers Memorial Day weekend after harmful algae bloom was reported in the waters there... Harmful algae is becoming increasingly common in Virginia waterways and elsewhere due to rising temperatures and pollution. For the past several summers, parts of nearby Lake Anna have had to be closed to swimmers due to algae bloom."
The Daily Progress
(May 22, 2025)
"Longtime Charlottesville pedestrian advocate Kevin Cox was arrested Wednesday and charged with a crime that could jail him for a year over a homemade crosswalk he marked on Elliott Avenue in the city, one block away from where a pedestrian was struck and killed by a car last fall."
C-VILLE Weekly
(May 21, 2025)
"More than eight years after the Virginia Department of Transportation awarded a grant for construction of a shared-use path along Rugby Avenue by the Route 250 bypass, the project is nearing completion. The 10-foot-wide path, and a return to the original traffic pattern along Rugby Avenue, will be finished by the end of August."
C-VILLE Weekly
(May 21, 2025)
"If approved by the county Board of Supervisors, the Forest School would be built in two phases on 15 acres with the first being a main school building to be called Basecamp. A second phase would be a building for religious assembly for up to 200 people, a by-right use that doesn’t require additional permission from the county. The remaining land would be placed under conservation easement."
Information Charlottesville
(May 18, 2025)
"The first memorial to American soldiers killed or wounded in the Vietnam War dates back to April 20, 1966 when one was installed in Charlottesville’s McIntire Park. Since that time, the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial has been on city land and remained in place even after the John Warner Parkway was built. The Dogwood Vietnam Memorial Foundation was formally established in 2015 to advance the future of the site. This year, Charlottesville City Council agreed to put $100,000 in the capital improvement program budget toward infrastructure to improve access to the site."
C-VILLE Weekly
(May 16, 2025)
"SupportWorks Housing will build 80 apartments, 62 of which will be reserved for unhoused individuals, with the rest made available to those with incomes less than 60 percent of the area median income."
Charlottesville Tomorrow
(May 16, 2025)
"The city regularly updates its strategic plan. It’s an internal policy document that outlines Charlottesville’s major priorities for the next five years. It’s basically a blueprint for the tangible things the city aims to accomplish... Creating this plan is a long, bureaucratic exercise — and the survey is only the start. Since most of us won’t have time to attend all the subsequent meetings and share our opinions and expertise, taking this survey is a way to help leaders understand where they should be devoting their time and our collective community resources."
29 News
(May 11, 2025)
"If you have been more frustrated than usual by Charlottesville traffic, you are probably not alone. As the cost of housing in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area raises and fewer homes go on the market, more people have moved to surrounding Fluvanna and Greene Counties, according to the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors, or CAAR."
Charlottesville Tomorrow
(May 8, 2025)
"The community of Buck Island, 10 miles southeast of Charlottesville in Albemarle County, is where I grew up in the 1960s. It now only exists in the minds of its descendants. It is a vague memory of those who knew it. Those of us who remember can reminisce about past times and confirm whether those memories are real or figments of our imagination. For me embarking on that journey of confirming has been eye opening."
The Winchester Star
(May 20, 2025)
"Contamination in Berryville's water supply seems to have lessened, at least for now, but it remains under the Virginia Department of Health's (VDH) scrutiny. Since 2023, tests have frequently shown haloacetic acid (HAA5) levels in the water to be higher than the federal maximum contaminant level of 0.060 milligrams per liter (mg/L). Officials haven't yet determined the cause."
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(May 22, 2025)
"Anew historical highway marker was dedicated last Friday at the oldest house in Culpeper County. Salubria in Stevensburg received a brand-new silver sign from the Department of Historic Resources to replace the original one set along Route 3 in 1997. The marker was irreparably damaged when it was struck by a vehicle in 2021."
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(May 22, 2025)
"Aproposal to add greater regulatory oversight to new data centers built outside of the Culpeper Tech Zone was sent to the full board of supervisors without a recommendation. The Rules Committee at its May 13 meeting considered potential zoning ordinance amendments that would require data center facilities not in the CTZ to get a conditional use permit to locate on industrial land."
Fauquier Times
(May 21, 2025)
"Data centers could soon be banned from the Town of Warrenton. The Warrenton Planning Commission on Tuesday recommended that the town council remove data centers as an allowable use in industrial districts — effectively banning them from the town by eliminating the process by which they can be approved."
Fauquier Now
(May 20, 2025)
"The Fauquier Planning Commission has received its first formal presentation of the proposed Gigaland data center campus project on 200 acres south of Lucky Hill Road, just outside the Remington town limits."
Fauquier Now
(May 18, 2025)
"Residents of western Prince William gathered Thursday alongside lawmakers outside Patriot High School to protest Dominion Energy’s pending Morrisville–Wishing Star 500 kV and 230 kV transmission line as the utility provider simultaneously held a community meeting inside the Nokesville school. The Coalition to Protect Prince William County hosted the event, where around 35 residents were joined by state and local elected officials."
The Piedmont Journal Recorder
(May 22, 2025)
"In their latest work session, the Greene County Planning Commission grappled with a number of zoning issues, including the use of mobile homes as accessory structures and the definition of indoor recreational facilities. Amidst these discussions, the commissioners also debated the county’s approach to regulating solar energy."
Loudoun Now
(May 22, 2025)
"Equestrian trails could be coming to Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve after a Board of Supervisors committee last night voted to recommend changes that would permit at least 4.5 miles of horse-friendly paths on the property. The 695-acre preserve, established in 1999, is protected by a Virginia Outdoors Foundation Easement."
Loudoun Now
(May 22, 2025)
"Tax exemptions for certified solar equipment inn Loudoun County will now align with changes adopted by the General Assembly, providing more breaks for some property owners who have solar equipment installed."
Loudoun Times-Mirror
(May 19, 2025)
"Would a tiny home community be beneficial for Loudoun County? The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors recently directed staff to work with the Affordable Unit Advisory Board conduct research for a white paper on whether such a community is feasible. Directing the charge earlier this month, Chair Phyllis Randall said she and other supervisors had been researching how to get more homes into Loudoun County."
Fauquier Now
(May 18, 2025)
"Residents of western Prince William gathered Thursday alongside lawmakers outside Patriot High School to protest Dominion Energy’s pending Morrisville–Wishing Star 500 kV and 230 kV transmission line as the utility provider simultaneously held a community meeting inside the Nokesville school. The Coalition to Protect Prince William County hosted the event, where around 35 residents were joined by state and local elected officials."
Loudoun Times-Mirror
(May 16, 2025)
"The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors will decide July 15 on the fate of the Arcola Grove data center, a proposed development of approximately 800,000 square feet that, if approved, will include an indoor substation."
Loudoun Now
(May 16, 2025)
"JK Community Farm’s annual Plant-A-Thon kicked off today, commencing the growing season by partnering with volunteers and nonprofits to plant over 50,000 seedlings. The Plant-A-Thon sees teams from companies and nonprofits as well as individual volunteers donate their time to support the nonprofit’s mission to combat food insecurity. JK Community Farms donates 100% of its yield of produce and proteins to food pantries throughout the region, including Loudoun Hunger relief and other nonprofit partners such as Food for Others, Arlington Food Assistance Center, and DC Central Kitchen."
Culpeper Star-Exponent
(May 22, 2025)
"An over 200-year-old log cabin in Madison County was recently named to the 2025 List of Virginia’s Most Endangered Places. 'Hidden Vale' was owned by former Gov. James Gilmore’s family in the mid-1800s, according to a release from Preservation Virginia."
Prince William Times
(May 19, 2025)
"City of Manassas property owners will likely pay about $400 more in real estate taxes in the coming year due to the city council’s preliminary vote to keep the real estate tax rate flat. The council also plans to hike data center taxes by 67% — but none are expected to pay the higher rate in the coming year."
Fauquier Times
(May 19, 2025)
"In the next few years, Jiffy Lube Live is poised to be nearly surrounded by data centers operated by some of the largest tech companies on the planet. Amazon is developing a 181-acre data center campus across the street, and Google’s 'Mango Farm' data centers are behind it to the southeast."
Fauquier Now
(May 18, 2025)
"Residents of western Prince William gathered Thursday alongside lawmakers outside Patriot High School to protest Dominion Energy’s pending Morrisville–Wishing Star 500 kV and 230 kV transmission line as the utility provider simultaneously held a community meeting inside the Nokesville school. The Coalition to Protect Prince William County hosted the event, where around 35 residents were joined by state and local elected officials."
Prince William Times
(May 18, 2025)
"Farmland that was once part of the historic African American community known as 'The Settlement' will soon be home to hundreds of new Gainesville residents."
InsideNoVa
(May 15, 2025)
"The proposal would rezone approximately 58 acres from A-1, agricultural, to PBD, planned business district, for the purpose of developing a data center campus. The property is about 1,300 feet west of the Nokesville Road and Piper Lane intersection, on the north side of Nokesville Road and west of Broad Run."
The Washington Post
(May 19, 2025)
"A fully automated D.C. Metro in the next two decades is closer to becoming a reality, as local leaders found agreement at a region-wide meeting Friday on adding hundreds of millions of dollars in annual support to the system’s coffers starting in 2027. But the idea of a regional sales tax to raise the funds was quickly rejected by local officials who said they would rather figure out where to find the money on their own."
Royal Examiner
(May 20, 2025)
"Warren County Supervisor Cheryl Cullers is making her position clear: data centers do not belong in Warren County. During a wide-ranging interview, Cullers addressed concerns about data centers, economic development, tourism, schools, and what she sees as divisive rhetoric in the community."
The Winchester Star
(May 20, 2025)
"NextEra Energy Transmission subsidiaries held an open house on Tuesday in Gore to get local feedback on preliminary routes for the MidAtlantic Resiliency Link, a proposed 105-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line that would cut through northern Frederick County."
The Wall Street Journal
(May 18, 2025)
"Data-center wars have erupted in West Virginia. Last month, in a bid to entice tech firms to the state, West Virginia passed legislation promoting the use of natural gas and coal to power artificial-intelligence projects. But residents are fighting the first proposal under the new law—determined to keep big tech out of one of the most scenic and ecologically diverse stretches of Appalachia."
Cardinal News
(May 13, 2025)
"The natural gas pipeline developer The Williams Companies plans another pipeline expansion in Virginia, this time to run from Pittsylvania County to parts north. The Transco Power Express would supply markets north of the Transco compressor station in Chatham with up to 950 million cubic feet of gas daily, serving 'the power-hungry Virginia market,' Williams’ President and CEO Alan Armstrong said last week on a quarterly earnings call."
The Daily Progress
(May 23, 2025)
"Over the past four decades, the American shad population in Virginia — specifically the James River — has collapsed. Humans are largely to blame. Dams, pollution, commercial fishing bycatch, water withdrawals and invasive species either impede habitat access, hinder spawning, consume living shad or all of the above. Climate change also complicates things. A once-beloved and cherished species in the James River and Chesapeake Bay watershed, the population has steadily declined since the 1970s. In recent years, scientists who attempt to net American shad for the purpose of estimating the population in the James River haven’t caught any."
WVTF
(May 22, 2025)
"Passed during a Democratic trifecta in 2020, the Virginia Clean Economy Act was viewed as a monumental step toward modernizing the state’s dirty power generation. But in the face of President Donald Trump’s alternative energy funding cuts and data center-fueled power demand, the most powerful Democrats in Virginia’s legislature appear open to reviewing the law."
Virginia Mercury
(May 22, 2025)
"Virginia awarded $983.6 million to 53 applicants in the sixth iteration of the competitive SMART SCALE process to help improve transportation across the commonwealth."
The New York Times
(May 20, 2025)
"Farmers have banded together to make the market for herbal supplements and remedies, part of Appalachia’s cultural heritage, more sustainable and more profitable."
VPM
(May 19, 2025)
"Last week, Henrico County’s Board of Supervisors held a joint meeting with the planning commission to discuss setting regulatory standards for data center developments that would limit their growth within the county. The proposed zoning regulations would incentivize the development of data centers in a specific area of Henrico, set regulatory building and environmental standards for each development and give the board of supervisors ample opportunity to review projects outside the designated zone."
The Piedmont Journal Recorder
(May 18, 2025)
"There are 43 State Parks spread across Virginia, from the largest, Pocahontas State Park (7919 acres) in Chesterfield County to the smallest, Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park (1.5 acres) in Wise County... Each state park is unique, many with campsites, some with cabins and altogether they offer more than 700 miles of trails spread across the state."
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(May 15, 2025)
"Dominion Energy wants to cut the credit that customers with solar panels on their rooftops can get on their monthly power bills, a move that could make installing them less attractive to homeowners and businesses. The proposal also is likely to spark one of the biggest clashes at the State Corporation Commission this year because it makes the economics of installing solar panels a lot more challenging, said Josephus Allmond, a staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit that aims to protect ratepayers and the environment."
WHRO
(May 15, 2025)
"The Chesapeake Planning Commission recommended the City Council deny a rezoning request for a major data center project. Citing a lack of information on key questions like water usage and noise, the commission voted 6-1 against the project."
Cardinal News
(May 13, 2025)
"The natural gas pipeline developer The Williams Companies plans another pipeline expansion in Virginia, this time to run from Pittsylvania County to parts north. The Transco Power Express would supply markets north of the Transco compressor station in Chatham with up to 950 million cubic feet of gas daily, serving 'the power-hungry Virginia market,' Williams’ President and CEO Alan Armstrong said last week on a quarterly earnings call."
WABE
(May 22, 2025)
"But as a smattering of data centers like Meta’s has grown into a bona fide boom industry in Georgia over the last seven years, solar isn’t the only new energy getting built. State regulators last year greenlit new gas- and diesel-fired turbines to meet spiking energy demand that Georgia Power said comes mostly from data centers. Now, the utility is asking to keep coal plants open longer than planned for the same reason. Electric co-ops, too, including Meta’s power supplier, are planning to add non-renewable resources to power data centers and other large power users."
The Washington Post
(May 14, 2025)
"The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it plans to rescind and reconsider limits on four 'forever chemicals' under a landmark drinking water standard implemented last year by President Joe Biden. The drinking water rules were adopted as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to limit public exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), hazardous chemicals linked to a range of serious illnesses. The original rule covered six common PFAS contaminants, including PFOA, a known human carcinogen, and PFOS, a likely carcinogen."
Public News Service
(May 15, 2025)
"Nine in 10 people in Virginia and across the globe are worried about climate change and want governments to do something about it, according to a new survey but they mistakenly assume others do not share their view."
