elene schlosberg and her husband moved to prince william county in northern virginia to build her “forever home,” as she puts it. there she joined the board of the prince william’s conservation alliance and developed an interest in land use and resource protection. this introduced schlosberg to a growing force that was becoming increasingly hard to ignore: data centers. 

northern virginia is the data center capital of the world, with more than 250 data centers housing 70% of the world’s internet traffic. residents like schlosberg chose to build their lives in prince william county because of the proximity to the district of columbia while still retaining a rural environment. today, the county has 90 data centers, and they are having palpable effects on the approximately 500,000 people who call prince william home. 

“digital gateway” is a proposal for a 37-data-center-complex that would be eight stories high and cover 22 million square feet. if constructed, it would become the largest data center complex in the world, a title currently held by the china telecom data center in inner mongolia, china. this mega-center is slated to be built beside the site of the battle of second manassas, a national park and landmark of the civil war. the plans also have the data center complex next to conway robinson state forest.

data centers are the physical buildings where it infrastructure is processed and stored. they create noise pollution, water pollution, use millions of gallons of drinking water for cooling, and drive up energy bills for those who live nearby. schlosberg said that she wants the local government in the county to start addressing the ways data centers are “directly harming” the people who call the county home. 

“we need to have our supervisors acknowledge that the decisions that they are making are raising our electricity rates, are risking the quality and quantity of our water, and also the quality of our air,” schlosberg said. 

qts reality trust, a company partnered with compass datacenters to construct digital gateway, states on their website that their data centers are “vital for managing business data, running websites, and accessing cloud services securely.” in 2022, when qts announced their plans for the data center complex, they told the prince william times they have a “strong track record of being a considerate, supportive, and sustainable neighbor,” and that they would work to preserve the areas “historical significance.”

virginia’s joint legislative audit and review commission did a study in 2023 that found that data centers have a generally positive effect on virginia’s economy, especially during their construction. the study found that data centers contribute “74,000 jobs, $5.5 billion in labor income, and $9.1 billion in gdp to virginia’s economy annually.”

in december of 2023, the prince william county board of supervisors approved compass datacenters and qts’s proposal for a 2,100-acre rezoning for the digital gateway. then, in august of 2025, digital gateway was challenged in court by 12 gainesville, va., residents known as the oak valley homeowners association. they argued that an advertisement placed in the washington post advertising a related hearing did not comply with virginia statute or county ordinance for proper notice, and that not enough public information relevant to the digital gateway application was available to the public at the time of the advertisement. 

circuit court judge kimberly a. irving ruled in favor of the homeowners. her ruling effectively voided the rezonings for the project. however, in october of 2025, the virginia court stayed the ruling at the request of compass datacenters, qts, and prince william county, reinstating the rezonings. on january 5, the oak valley homeowners, along with six conservation organizations, signed a legal brief against the construction of digital gateway. the brief poses two arguments: “the rezonings imperil the manassas battlefield” and “the digital gateway threatens prince william county with permanent environmental harms.”

buildings, power, and powerlines

one group that joined the brief was the coalition to protect prince william county, an organization officially formed by schlosberg in 2014. the coalition gained local attention during the haymarket dominion line case that got the group really involved in the movement against data centers. in november of 2015, dominion energy filed an application to build a 230 kilovolt double circuit transmission line through prince william and loudoun counties to power an amazon web services owned data center campus, according to the virginia state corporation commission. the line was proposed to be placed along carver road in gainesville but faced pushback from residents, claiming it would cut through properties owned by african american families since the 1800s. the county rejected the application for the lines along carver road, and dominion energy proposed an alternative route along i-66 for their transmission lines instead.

schlosberg said that this case made the demand for energy in northern virginia evident. “that exposes really for the first time the kind of energy demand that the data center industry is triggering,” she said. schlosberg added, “nobody knew about the kind of infrastructure that was being built for the data center industry.” dominion declined to respond to a request for comment. 

in 2015 the coalition joined the dominion line legal case with the virginia state corporation commission (scc). they did not fully prevent dominion from building the transmission line, but the  coalition reached an agreement where they were able to get a remand which prevented the development of the carver road route. the virginia state corporation commission instead approved a i-66 hybrid route project in july 2018 to power a data center to be built on 38 acres of land. 

schlosberg has been the president of the coalition for 11 years now. she said the priority of the coalition and of the community was for transmission line to have the least amount of impact on homes and small businesses. “the primary goal was protecting the community,” schlosberg said. “that was why we settled.”

jessica buhl is the director of the coalition. she said that a major issue is people not understanding what data centers are and why they are “devastating” to the environmental wellbeing of the area. 

“we are still in the very beginning phases of what is going to happen in prince william county, and a lot of people, if it is not right next door to them, don’t realize that it will affect them,” buhl said. 

buhl said her “biggest concern” is how data centers are going to affect the environment and, in particular, water. prince william county holds the headwaters to the occoquan watershed, a reservoir that supplies about 40% of the drinking water to northern virginia. data centers can use up to 5 million gallons per day, and tap into local freshwater resources like the occoquan and potomac rivers to meet this demand. 

“if we destroy this, we will no longer be feeding clean water to the occoquan,” buhl said. 

data centers also create water pollution. the buildings cover large areas often with impervious surfaces, which means that water is unable to easily pass through the land. this leads to increased polluted runoff that streams into drinking water reservoirs, according to the piedmont environmental council, a nonprofit headquartered in warrenton, va.  

fairfax county is a county that neighbors prince william. the fairfax county environmental quality advisory council (eqac) said in the 2024 annual report that data centers would have a long term impact on both water consumption and wastewater treatment in northern virginia. buhl said that fairfax and prince william counties work together to “protect” the occoquan, and by allowing these data centers, prince william has “completely ignored” this deal. 

“you can’t undo this,” buhl said, “you can’t fix it. and they’re making these plans without knowing what the ramifications and consequences are.” 

buhl is a mother of two young boys. she said that what this fight against data centers comes down to is “quality of life for the future.”

“what are we leaving for our kids? what are we doing to protect their futures? in prince william county we are doing a terrible job,” buhl said.

a landscape transformed

on nov. 6, 2025, giuseppe’s ristorante italiano in old haymarket held members of the coalition as they gathered to eat, catch up, and listen to a talk entitled “backroom deals in our back yard” by miranda s. spivak. schlosberg and spivak discussed how data centers represent government deals with effects in everyday people’s backyards. 

rose schulz came to the meeting because she wanted to be “a part of the discussion” around what was going on in her community, she said. schulz said she and her husband, rick schulz, came to prince willam because it was a rural area, but now, their landscape has drastically changed, with data centers “encroaching” on their everyday life.

“we’re just finding that the scenery is changing, our power billing is changing and increasing,” schulz said. “the land that was reported to be for homes, then a school, is now a data center.” 

the amount of energy being used up by data centers is set to increase energy demand in virginia by 180% and could raise households who use dominion energy’s electricity bills by up to $37 per month by 2040, according to a 2024 study on the industry from joint legislative audit and review commission. this increase would not just affect northern virginia. the pjm interconnection is an electrical grid that connects all or parts of 13 states in the northeast, including virginia, maryland, north carolina, pennsylvania, tennessee, west virginia and d.c. pjm forecasts that data centers are expected to account for the majority of the 32 gigawatts of demand growth through 2030.  

schulz said she would “love it” if the data center companies covered the increased energy costs, but that instead it would be added to the energy bills of the people who lived along the pjm line instead. 

“that cost will come back to us,” schulz said, “we don’t know the impact of the cost because power has to be paid for.” 

data center’s energy usage more often than not goes back to people who live in the area and are connected to the same power grids. this happens because the energy needed is so large that companies often need to build entirely new infrastructure to handle it and spreads that cost to all their ratepayers. or, other times costs go up because the utility prices are set through markets, and the energy demand is going up without supply rising fast enough to meet it, according to ari peskoe, director of the electricity law initiative at the harvard law school environmental and energy law program. 

energy costs for those who live near data centers were up 5.5% between november 2024 and 2025, according to the u.s. energy information administration. in january, senate democrats elizabeth warren of massachusetts, richard blumenthal of connecticut and chris van hollen of maryland launched an investigation into how data centers are increasing energy prices nationwide. according to cnn, companies like google, meta, and microsoft responded to the senators saying they will make plans to partially or fully cover their energy costs, although they made “few specifics” on how they plan to do so. 

there is currently no legislation in virginia that says data center companies have to pay for the increased cost of energy to consumers, but virginia gov. abigail spanberger said she would pressure data center companies to “pay their fair share” of energy costs during her term, according to the virginia mercury. 

‘it just doesn’t seem right’

schulz “loves” to do landscaping, she said, and relies on merrifield garden center in gainesville, va., for supplies. in october, the store was bought out by a data center developer for $160 million, according to the prince willam times. they will be closing at the end of the year after 17 years in business.

rose schulz said this is another way that living in the region with the most data centers in the world is affecting “everyday living.” 

“we’re going backwards, and it just doesn’t seem right,” schulz said. 

the amicus brief against digital gateway states that if county supervisors approved the rezoning needed for this project, that it “would inevitably lead to the irreversible and irreparable desecration of hallowed ground and the despoiling of the natural and cultural resources.” oral arguments are set to be heard on feb. 24, 2026 in the virginia court of appeals in arlington, according to inside nova. 

prince william county has approved $400,000 in additional funding to cover the litigation expenses digital gateway is accruing. this would increase the total the county has spent on defending the data center complex to $1.7 million. prince william supervisor george stewart is planning to initiate a motion for the county to reconsider this transfer, according to inside nova. 

schlosberg said she wants people to understand that this is not just a local or statewide problem. she said that “everybody” from every area and age group should be “engaged” in the movement against data centers. 

“this is not just about prince william or virginia,” schlosberg said. “whether it is your future or your present, this is an issue that impacts every single person in this country.”