500 signatures reached
To: Our Citrus County Commissioners
No Data Center for Citrus County
The Deltona Corporation is attempting to change the zoning on a total of over 1300 acres along Rt. 41 from Hernando to Holder to allow a huge Data Center in Citrus County. A Data Center houses thousands of computing components to provide critical IT infrastructure, enabling data storage, processing, and distribution for businesses and online services. They are necessary to support current and future demands for storage and processing of information, and they support global financial systems, cloud services, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. They also come with their own set of problems: demands on water for cooling, increased demands on electricity, air pollution from backup generators, noise from the many servers, which run 24/7, and can travel several miles, interruptions to the environment and animal habitats. St. Lucie and Palm Beach Counties and Fort Meade have halted the development of their data centers. Builders claim DCs bring lots of jobs. Jobs are there during initial construction, but once built, DCs practically run themselves with a staff of between 10 and 100 depending on their size. Builders are attempting to mitigate some of the problems, but don't be fooled, those problems and more still exist. Because of the square footage required to build a center, rural counties with ready water access have become prime locations. They are usually peaceful, rural communities, with lots of vacant land, higher poverty rates, lower income, and fewer people to offer objections. Do not allow Deltona and our county commissioners to inflict this imposition on the lifestyle of Citrus County. Please sign our petition and tell Deltona and the BOCC, "NO ZONING CHANGES! KEEP NATURE IN THE NATURE COAST!"
Why is this important?
You may hear arguments to the contrary, but data centers do increase demand for electricity, either at the center itself or passed on to local electric companies and residents foot the bill. Some will argue that there is no demand on water. DCs need lots of water to cool their systems. The Southwest Florida Water Management District has declared a Phase III Extreme Water Shortage in effect from April 3 through July 1. Do we really need to put any additional strain on our water supply? A huge data center will completely disrupt the quiet, natural environment of our county. Hundreds of servers operating together create a constant hum. Cooling systems can produce low frequency drones that can travel several miles. Emergency backup generators create additional noise and air pollution when in use. Nighttime security lighting will disrupt animal sleep cycles and migration routes. What will this do to the remaining wildlife in the area? Data Centers tend to raise the temperature of the surrounding areas from 3 to 10+ degrees over several miles. Over 30,000 residents of Citrus Couty live within 5 miles of the potential build. Hernando, Forest Ridge and Citrus Springs Elementary Schools and Citrus Springs Middle School are within 5 miles of this site. All residents of Citrus County will be impacted by these changes. Please contact your County Commissioners and tell them, "Stop rezoning at the Holder Industrial site." Go to https://www.citruscounty.gov/government/county/_commissioners/index.php for county commissioner contact info. We are running out of time to stop this intrusion. Please send a direct link to this petition at https://sign.moveon.org/p/nodatacenterforcitruscouny to all your friends. Go to https://nodatacentercitrus.org for more information.