The rural landscape of northern Virginia is hallowed ground for American Civil War enthusiasts. Across its open farmlands criss-crossed with split-rail fences, many of the most important Civil War battles took place, such as the first major clash of armies at the Battle of First Manassas. Today, there are spent ammunitions, memorabilia and even lost graves still to be uncovered. The most popular battlefields attract more than half a million tourists annually.
However, a new conflict is now playing out at these sites, between preservationists and some of the world’s largest technology firms. Northern Virginia has evolved beyond a historical hotspot to become home to Loudon County’s Data Center Alley – the largest concentration of data centres in the world. And as Data Center Alley becomes even more crowded, developers are eying land near battlefields such as Brandy Station in Culpeper County, site of the largest cavalry battle in North America.
“Culpeper County is one of the most visited counties in the Commonwealth because of its Civil War battlefields and its Revolutionary War history,” says , a local historian and preservationist. “And if you eviscerate its assets, then guess what? People won’t come.”
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About 160 years ago, the northern Virginia region became a wartime crossroads for rival armies after 11 seceded from the US to form the Confederate States of America. Over the course of four years, Union and Confederate fighters clashed frequently and more than 620,000 people died while serving in the rival armies.
Today, the same region is home to more than 100 of the largest “hyperscale” data centres – 20 per cent of the world’s total – owned or leased by companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Each resembles a giant warehouse filled with tens of thousands of computer servers for cloud computing.
Virginia’s data centre boom started in 2008 when state lawmakers began offering tax incentives to data centre developers, says Josh Levi, president of the Data Center Coalition. This snowballed as more fibre-optic networks were built within the state and connected to global networks. Virginia Beach, for example, hosts a crucial connection point for submarine internet cables – owned by companies such as Google, Meta and Microsoft – that carry data between the US, Europe and South America.
It has been a boon for the local economy and in recent times thanks to the rise in remote working during the pandemic. However, finding the right place to put new data centres isn’t straightforward.
Take a recent Amazon land purchase in Culpeper County. The company has proposals for two six-storey data centres covering more than 4 hectares, which county officials approved in April 2022. Six local landowners responded by alleging that the decision violates the county’s comprehensive plan for land use established in 2015. That case is currently being considered by the Culpeper Circuit Court.
The location of Amazon’s proposed $500-million facility has clear sight of , where early fighting took place between Union and Confederate cavalry during the 1863 . That ridge also holds the rocky foundations of many huts built by thousands of Union soldiers who camped there later in the Civil War and is set to become part of a .
“It’s a very rural county, Culpeper – cows and corn,” says Andrew Gutowski, a founder of the Culpeper Alliance for Balanced Growth, a community advocacy group. “Amazon swooped in and bought a horse farm in agricultural land and just shocked everybody.”
Magic elixir
Another proposal could position data centres next to the in Prince William County. The development plan covers more than 250 hectares – the equivalent of 467 American football fields – and includes data centres from companies such as QTS Realty Trust and Compass Datacenters. A coalition of national and local non-profit organisations dedicated to historical preservation, environmental conservation and land use oppose the project.
Amazon, QTS Realty Trust and Compass Datacenters didn’t respond to żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ’s request for comment. John Foote, a land-use attorney at Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley & Walsh, which is representing the Amazon Web Services push to develop data centres in Culpeper County, has previously that the site is particularly good because of its vicinity to power and internet cables. “The magic elixir is access to fibre and power,” he said.
The sight and sounds of data centre infrastructure would disrupt the experience of visitors, says at the National Parks Conservation Association in Washington DC, which is in the data centre-opposing coalition. In the town of Manassas, residents of the Great Oak neighbourhood have already coming from an existing Amazon data centre campus.
Prince William County officials recently held their of the proposal in July 2022. But the issue remains up in the air amidst fierce local debate, with those opposed to the proposal launching recall efforts against certain officials.
These data centre proposals are merely the latest in a long line of development projects that have been challenged by advocates for battlefield parks. “This is the first time that I am aware of that [the National Parks Conservation Association] has been involved in such a large-scale fight on multiple levels against data centres at battlefields, or really at any national park site,” says Hart.
While Civil War enthusiasts and historical preservationists are fighting the data centres, many counties are vying for the business to boost local tax revenue. Some counties had previously set aside land specifically for so-called technology zones that could host data centres. But controversy arose when developers pressed county officials to approve the rezoning of near state and national battlefield parks.
And while Virginia’s growing data centres directly contributed an estimated $7.5 billion in economic output in 2021, that is still a fraction of the sector. in Virginia from visitors flocking to sites such as the Manassas National Battlefield Park accounted for $1.9 billion in economic benefit in 2021.
Ultimately, many of the people opposing the expansive plans for new data centres say they would be happy if the new sites were only in those zones already designated for technology development, says Jim Campi at the American Battlefield Trust in Washington DC, one of the organisations opposing the data centre sites near the battlefields of both Prince William and Culpeper counties. “There is no reason you can’t balance data centre development and historic preservation,” he says.
