Stafford supervisors are considering developing a comprehensive county-wide noise ordinance in order to be able to control the noise level produced by data centers.
Meg Bohmke, Chair of the Stafford Board of Supervisors, said this week that she wants the Board to locate a third-party consultant to conduct noise analyses of proposed data center developments—and that the developers should pay for these analyses.
“I believe it is incumbent on this board to hire a third-party consultant to represent us when we look at these future data centers,” said Bohmke said on Tuesday. “There are a number of noise consultants within the Commonwealth that do this kind of work. I personally do not want to rely on a noise analysis done by the developer. I just don’t. I think we need to get a third party, paid for by the applicant.”
Bohmke asked for the noise discussion to be added to the agenda for Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. She said she recently drove by the site of the Potomac Church Tech Center, where Amazon Data Services has begun constructing two data center buildings, each 65-feet tall, off Old Potomac Church Road in the Falmouth district.
Supervisors in November approved a proffer amendment permitting construction of the center to begin. Bohmke voted against the project, citing noise concerns.
“I brought up that I was very concerned about my constituents that live very close—very close—to the substation, [and about] the noise that will be forever with these people,” she said this week.
Bohmke said some constituents live “about 100 feet” from the data center. According to the general development plan, the shortest distance from a data center building to the property line is 199.98 feet.
There’s a distance of 200 feet between the property line to the south and the access road surrounding the data center buildings.
There is a 6-foot privacy wall and 25-to-50-foot buffer plantings to the south of the property and a 40-foot setback and 15-foot buffer plantings to the west.
There is a substation pad to the north of the property, which will be shielded from neighboring land by a 16-to-23-foot-tall sound wall, a 6-foot privacy fence and a 25-foot buffer.
According to the general development plan, the land that most directly adjoins the substation is currently vacant. It’s not clear from the plan how far the substation pad is from the nearest residential house.
ADS conducted a sound analysis and estimated that the project would generate noise at a maximum decibel level of 55 at the property line, and 50 at the closest residential structure, Mike Zuraf, the county’s acting assistant director of planning and zoning, told supervisors in November.
According to a decibel level comparison chart from Yale University, 55 decibels is equal to the low-level hum of a household refrigerator. Normal conversation registers at 60 to 70 decibels and city traffic at 85 decibels.
As part of its proffers, ADS agreed to limit the maximum decibel level generated by the Potomac Church Tech Center to 55 at any time, and to provide $25,000 for the purchase of sound level meters for the county’s use.
But Bohmke said on Tuesday that noise is not static, and that neighbors will be experiencing noise from the data center combined with that from Interstate 95, U.S. 1, the nearby apartments and daycare center.
“Noise is very disruptive for humans and pets,” she said. “I believe that this board needs to have a very robust noise ordinance when it comes to data centers.”
Other supervisors said they agreed with the idea of developing a county-wide noise ordinance, but that they were hesitant to ask applicants to pay for a third-party noise analysis.
“I’m not sure we can tell a developer who to hire as a consultant,” said Tinesha Allen, Griffis-Widewater representative. “I understand the need to be mindful [of our constituents] but I also want us to be mindful on the other hand that we don’t want to seem as if we are sending up ‘Closed for Business’ signs to data centers. If we move too far in a certain direction, then the die may be cast, and we can’t undo that.”
County Attorney Ryesha McClendon asked the board for some time to look into the legality of what the county can require applicants to do, and interim County Administrator Craig Meadows said staff would come back to the board with an estimated cost of hiring a consultant to conduct a noise analysis.
