-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Local governments across the state are seeing an increase in applications for data centers.
There are two projects that have broken ground in Bartow County, with two or three more in the pipeline, according to Bartow County Commissioner Steve Taylor.
“I think five or six would maybe be our limit, as far as our appetite for them,” he said. “That would give us plenty of revenue. I was born and raised in Bartow County, and I don’t want to see the county covered up and all of our agriculture become data centers. However, I do think a good mix around the cities will provide some pretty good jobs. There are not a ton of jobs, but the jobs that are in a data center are really high-paying. However, they will really provide a lot of revenue to these local communities.”
With that increased revenue, Taylor believes that Bartow County can get to a 100 percent homestead exemption on property taxes.
He added there are a lot of misconceptions regarding data centers.
“One is water use—they are going to use up all of our water,” Taylor said. You know, the city and the county withdraw water from Lake Allatoona, and we have a permit for 37 million gallons. On our peak day in the summertime, we withdraw about 15 million gallons—I think that is our record. So, we’ve got about two-and-a-half times the permitted water that we use. We don’t allow these data centers to come in and be big water users. They have to have a closed loop, which means they fill up their system and then they re-circulate, using that water over and over.”
Taylor believes another misconception pertains to the noise issue.
“I’ve stood outside one in Douglasville, and I didn’t hear a thing,” he said. “Everything is inside buildings. Nothing is outside. There are no toxic emissions coming from them. Once they are built, there are no tractor-trailers going in and out of that property like these logistics buildings. Power use is real, but that is not a local government decision. That’s up to the power providers like Georgia Power, MEAG, and electric cities.”
Taylor was a guest on Tuesday’s First News with Doug Walker on WRGA.
In June, the Floyd County Commission approved an 80-day moratorium on data center projects.
The county commission has taken only one vote related to a data center, and that was a rezoning issue in the Coosa area.
There are three other possible sites in Floyd County and the City of Rome–the former Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital site, Huffaker Road and Fouche Gap, and the old Ball site in Shannon.
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