Newberry County Council: Reject the Project Altair Data Center

We, the undersigned residents of Newberry County, call on the Newberry County Council to reject Ordinance 03-01-2026 and decline to option the remaining acreage of Mid-Carolina Commerce Park II to the Project Altair data center developer.

Newberry County is a place defined by its land, its water, and the quiet rhythm of small-town life. A data center on this site puts all three at risk — for the benefit of an out-of-state developer and a corporate tenant who will not live here, send their children to our schools, or drink from our wells.

⚡ Higher electric bills for every household. Bloomberg's analysis of 25,000 grid nodes found wholesale electricity prices have risen up to 267% over five years in areas near significant data center activity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects residential electricity prices could rise up to 40% by 2030. Without a separate large-load rate class, every Newberry Electric Cooperative member would help pay for infrastructure built to serve a single industrial customer.

💧 Strain on our water supply. A medium-sized data center uses roughly 110 million gallons of water per year. Larger facilities consume up to 5 million gallons per day — the equivalent of a town of 30,000 to 50,000 people. Even "closed-loop" cooling requires continuous makeup water.

🔊 Round-the-clock industrial noise. Data center cooling systems and backup generators produce continuous low-frequency noise that travels farther and is harder to block than ordinary noise. Studies show noise above 65 decibels raises stress, blood pressure, and disrupts sleep. Residential neighborhoods and the Mid-Carolina Country Club would be in the affected zone.

🏥 Real public health costs. A 2025 modeling study projects that U.S. data centers in 2030 could contribute to roughly 1,300 premature deaths and 600,000 asthma symptom cases per year — driven by emissions from backup generators and the gas plants brought online to serve them.

👷 Few permanent jobs. Data centers create very few ongoing jobs relative to their footprint and resource demand — typically 30 to 50 once operational. The recently withdrawn $3 billion Spartanburg "Project Spero" data center would have created just 50 jobs.

We are not opposed to economic growth. We are opposed to growth that takes more from our community than it gives — that raises our utility bills, drains our aquifers, fills our nights with industrial hum, and leaves us with the cleanup when the technology cycle moves on.

Newberry County deserves an economic future built on more than one secretive deal with one corporate tenant. We are watching. We are organized. And we are voting.