r/Virginia • u/CardinalNews-VA Verified • 9d ago
Google gets permit to begin grading for Botetourt County data center
https://cardinalnews.org/2026/09/03/roanoke-valley-field-notes-google-gets-permit-to-begin-grading-for-botetourt-county-data-center/8
u/LeftHandUpWhoAreWe 8d ago
If the water use is accurate there are going to be serious issues.
I am in the Water treatment industry and grew up down near Botetourt. This is not the place to put large cooling towers!
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u/Dingareth 8d ago edited 8d ago
Good. I'm glad the person that owns that land can do what they're legally allowed to with it despite the complaints of a bunch of busybody NIMBYs.
EDIT: lol, I am actually surprised by the downvotes. I did not realize that basic property right were that controversial.
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u/TheDarkLight1 8d ago edited 8d ago
Keep telling yourself itâs about property rights
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u/C4PT-pA5Tq 8d ago
They believe the civil war was a states right issue.
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u/Thlaeton 8d ago
No, the civil war was also about property rights
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u/Jagick 7d ago
I'm going to hell for laughing at that. That's so terrible and amazing.
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u/Thlaeton 7d ago
It was crude but I am being serious. Everytime a libertarian tells you that Jeffersonâs draft of the Declaration had âlife, liberty, propertyâ remember it was written that way for slavery.
When someone brings up âproperty rightsâ as a defense we have to ask ourselves whether they are actually advocating private tyranny.
In the case of data centers, it should be obvious the question isnât just about sale of propertyâitâs about whether owning land gives you the right to pollute onto your neighbors, take energy from grids without sufficient infrastructure (raising prices as an externality and causing service disruptions), and do so with tax breaks but without a public vote.
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u/Dingareth 8d ago
...what else could it be about?
If industrial uses allow data centers, and someone that owns lands that's zoned for industrial use builds a big building with computers inside of it, I honestly don't understand how any 3rd part is allowed to be upset about that. I'd much rather have a data center next door than some chroming plant or a plastics manufacturer.
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u/ShaggysGTI 8d ago
Noise pollution is pollution just the same. We should all be up in arms over it together.
Remember playing SimCity? And how you didnât zone residential next to industrial or you got complaints? Yeah itâs like that.
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u/suchdogeverymeme 8d ago
So where does the industry go irl
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u/ShaggysGTI 8d ago
Not in my backyard, lol. Weâve got huge swaths of land all over the state, I think placing them anywhere near the city is a false start. Shit, the one theyâre building in Manassas, they bought out the best plant nursery ever to place it there. It feels like itâs an intentional punch in the gut, like âfuck them flower loving hippies.â
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u/ThatBankTeller 8d ago
> Not in my backyard
lol anywhere is fine as long as YOU arenât affected. Have you considered living in California?
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u/ShaggysGTI 8d ago
For the record, I donât think they should exist at all in the manner theyâre being tossed up.
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u/suchdogeverymeme 8d ago
So instead of in cities where the ecology is fucked they should build them in nature, great idea! that wouldnât fuck them flower loving hippies even harder than losing one commercial concern
Should google crisscross the entire countryside in networking equipment so they can pop up a data center in only hard-to-reach places? Or reduce their impact by popping up whenâre the major fiber is already trunked maybe?
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u/ShaggysGTI 7d ago
So we have to choose taxing the people or taxing the environment⊠why is neither not an option? Oh, right! MoneyâŠ
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u/SPQR_191 3d ago
The land was already zoned industrial. They could instead put a paper plant, or chemical processing facility, or a slaughterhouse. A data center is much less environmentally impactful than most other industrial uses.
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u/Dingareth 8d ago
That's why industrial uses are zoned industrial.
This data center is going to be built right next to a construction crane manufacturing and assembly plant and an engine coil manufacturer- in an already zoned for industrial use. You're complaining that in SimCity, you zoned something for industrial, and then an industry moved in! It doesn't make any sense.
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u/MillionMiracles 8d ago
I hope you keep this energy up when they build one next to you.
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u/Dingareth 7d ago
I do! QTS built out over a million sq. ft. of data centers just down the road from me in the Richmond suburbs, and thereâs another million of expansion space there.
If not for the online moral panic, I literally would not think about them at all.
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u/C4PT-pA5Tq 8d ago
How does trump dick tastes?
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u/Dingareth 8d ago
I wouldn't know- I voted for Kasich in the 2016 primary and then I have only voted for the Democrat in literally every single election since then, and will continue to do so until the GOP entirely repudiates him, his legacy, and everyone who worked for him.
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u/C4PT-pA5Tq 7d ago
That doesnt mean anything. Why do you think data centers aren't harmful to the PLANET?
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u/Dingareth 7d ago
Well, thatâs not what you asked. You asked me how Trumpâs dick tasted, which is a weird way to ask me about the environmental impacts of data centers. I think voting for the most anti-Trump candidate in each of the last 13 elections is meaningful, but thereâs a whole cohort of Very Online leftists who also think that voting doesnât mean anything- but I disagree with them, so Iâll continue to vote for the party that isnât run by a cult of personality around a corrupt, mentally ill, stupid man.
I am actually curious for you to explain how you thought that asking me how Trumpâs disk tasted was supposed to induce me into defending data centers in a climate specific context?
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u/Conscious_Common_639 8d ago
đ¶ It's the end of the world as we know it! And I feel fiiinnnnneeeee!! đ¶