A huge new Amazon data center development and the diesel-burning generators to power it are the subject of a hearing Thursday afternoon in Rockingham.
The 650-acre project will include 21 data center buildings powered by nearly 600 diesel generators.
In order to proceed, Amazon and Duke Energy have requested Title V permits from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. The Title V program regulates the state’s largest polluters, including fossil fuel power plants, furniture makers and lumberyards.
Duke Energy would operate nearly 60 leased generators until Amazon’s 600 permanent generators are online.
Environmental advocates, including Clean Water for NC, plan to protest the permits and organize Hamlet residents in opposition.
Rockingham native Shaun Ingram, co-founder of the Richmond County Coalition for Justice and Black Empowerment, lives within 10 miles of the site. He said his biggest concerns were air and water pollution from the data center.
“It's the simple fact that we knew that there are already pollutants in the water, in the air,” Ingram said. “And knowing that Richmond County and its infrastructure couldn't stand for another big pollutant industry to come in, regardless of whether it was Amazon or whatever industry.”
Ingram said the county has long struggled with water quality problems, pointing to the Charles Macon Lagoon and Drum Storage Superfund Site in Cordova, which the EPA designated a superfund site in 1983. The agency removed 3,123 tons of waste and 137,000 gallons of oil from the 40-acre property that year.
“This was kind of a shock to us that Amazon was being proposed to be built in Richmond County due to the issues that are already there,” Ingram said.
Amazon’s own report concluded that Richmond County is “within the two least healthy ranges for the state” in terms of health and well-being. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described the census tract where the facility is located as “highly burdened” by pollution.
The hearing begins at 6 p.m. at the Old Richmond County Courthouse, about 70 miles southeast of Charlotte. State regulators will accept comments until Friday, July 31. You can email comments to daq.publiccomments@deq.nc.gov with the subject line “Amazon.25A and DukeRichmond.26C.”
