By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
A panel discussion co-sponsored by Mountain State Spotlight and Country Roads News brought together Director of West Virginia Data Economy Office Chris Morris, Executive Director of Tucker United Amy Margolies, West Virginia Delegate Evan Hansen and West Virginia Delegate JD Akers at the Davis Fire Hall on Monday night June 15th. Dan Parks of Country Roads News acted as moderator during the discussion.
Nicholas Preservati, Deputy Secretary of Commerce, had planned to attend, but was unable to due to a death in the family. Delegate Akers stepped in as a replacement on the panel.
Opening statements were made by Tyler Dedrick of Mountain State Spotlight. Parks acknowledged Dedrick and Mountain State Spotlight in his opening remarks for suggesting the event and doing most of the planning.
Chris Morris was the first of the panelists to speak. In his opening remarks, Morris said that he turned down the appointment twice before accepting. He went to see a data center before he accepted the appointment. He said what he saw during his visit was vastly different then what was built eight or ten years ago.
The goal for his office, Morris said, was discerning responsible projects. The office is currently working on a process for approving projects that the State can be proud of, he said.
Next to give opening statements was Amy Margolies. She said as a group, Tucker United didn’t ask to be in the position they are. They are thinking through what they want the future to be. She asserted that more understanding is needed to weigh the costs and benefits. Margolies said that 70% of Americans said they do not want to live near a data center.
Delegate JD Akers was next to give his opening statements. Akers expressed his gratitude for face to face meetings such as the one at the Davis Fire Hall. He said that on social media people rarely get along on controversial issues and it affords little opportunity to constructively talk out issues.
Akers said West Virginia keeps losing its most important commodity, “its people.” He said his focus is on trying to keep the State’s young people at home. There are 7% fewer young people living in the State, according to Akers.
As far as the Ridgeline Project and Fundamental Data, Akers said he was “Agnostic” on the matter. He said that each project needed to be examined to see if it was a fit for the community.
“Have you know if it is the right project for the right community,” Akers said.
Lastly, Delegate Evan Hansen gave his opening remarks. He said that his focus was on HB 2014 and in what he saw as flaws in the data center law such as protecting water resources and the tax base.
The first question, directed at Morris, revealed that two projects had been approved. However, neither was in Tucker County and no applications had been filed for Tucker County with his office.
Morris said there are Counties across the State that want Data Centers to come to them. His office is working on comprising a list of these communities so that he can submit them to companies wanting to build data centers in order to ease the process.
“People want to go where they are desired,” Morris said. “They don’t want to go where they aren’t.”
Margolies responded that she found Morris’ ideas promising, but what was needed was legally binding promises. She brought up the 1,600 comments to the Air Quality Board on the Ridgeline Permit, a number she said the DEP was a record number and how the community felt after they were disregarded by the entity.
“We don’t want a participation trophy,” Margolies said.
On the subject of redactions, Hansen said that he felt companies had an obligation to disclose as much as possible to the public. Akers questioned the number of redactions on the permit, but said there was nothing unique about the application process.
Akers said that HB 2014 was established to established ruled and guardrails because there were already a handful of smaller data centers in West Virginia already. He said the main issue is power generation. There is going to be a need to more power generation to avoid a drain on the existing grid. He even went so far as to say that a data center could still be built without HB 2014 even applying, if it were small enough and State and Federal regulations would still apply to the project.
Hansen said that he had introduced an amendment to HB 2014 over local control, but it was party-line issue. Margolies said that the issue was unique to West Virginia and is not a partisan question, “in any way, shape or form.” She said that the State government advertises this part of HB 2014 on its website as a selling point.
Akers also addressed the issue of revenue split in HB 2014. He said that revenue split could be a good thing if done right. He said that while 70% of tax revenue would go to the State, money would trickle back into the County through various programs and funds regulated by the State, much like the Coal Severance Program.
Morris was asked about possibility in the near future of data centers in space, as well as clean up issues after a center is abandoned. He said that data centers cluster and he felt that the idea of space based data centers were impractical. As far as abandoned data centers, Morris said that he has never heard of a data center being decommissioned.
“We are using these things all day every day. They aren’t going away,” Morris said. “I haven’t heard of any that have been decommissioned.”
Akers said he did not want any County to become Loudoun County, however he did not want sensitive information held overseas. He also said he wants to see them responsibly built and to have some measure of control.
“We do want to have some measure of control over these,” Akers said.
Morris said that he and Margolies agreed on a lot of issues. Morris’ office is assembling an Advisory Council that will report directly back to the Governor. Within the next 30 to 60 days, Morris anticipates to begin seeking prospective members from across the State from all walks of life and areas of expertise.
“Power generating projects are already regulated,” Morris said. “You don’t want that stuff right next to a school. So I agree with that. You deserve to ask these questions and you deserve to have those answers.”
