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Remarks to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Northern Regional Office: April 6, 2023 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville. DEQ's website states its mission “is to protect and enhance the environment of Virginia in order to promote the health and well-being of the Commonwealth's citizens, residents, and visitors in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.” At no time during the discussion of your proposed variance to permit data centers to operate their noxious diesel generators during peak periods of electrical demand did I see any evidence of DEQ’s interest in protecting the health and well-being of Virginians.   Your focus was strictly on how to accommodate electrical utilities and the data center industry, whose overreach and poor planning are responsible for the crisis you are trying to address. Virginia already has a Department of Commerce and Trade to advocate for business interests.   Did you conflate their mission with yours? ...
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  Remarks to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Northern Regional Office: February 27, 2023 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville. DEQ's website states its mission “is to protect and enhance the environment of Virginia in order to promote the health and well-being of the Commonwealth's citizens, residents, and visitors in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.” Most of us are here today questioning how your mission squares with the accommodation you are proposing to permit a single wealthy industry to hazard our health and well-being. My skepticism about DEQ’s blind eye toward data center growth goes back some time.   On November 21, 2021, I asked regional director Tom Faha whether he intended to respond to a requested review of the Prince William Digital Gateway proposal. Despite the unprecedented magnitude of this project, Mr. Faha replied that: “Such proposals are considered local zoning matters and outside of the agency’s regulato...
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  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: February 7, 2023 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Devlin Technology Park.   Another bold masterstroke you can be proud of Communities in the Bristow area are facing the prospect of being surrounded by the relentless onslaught of data center development.   I’m talking about the already approved 179-acre Hunter property adjacent to Piney Grove Elementary School and the Amberleigh Station subdivision.   It is being developed by the Dutch Yondr Group for 11 data centers .   Can you imagine what these residents will be enduring during construction and upon completion? So tonight, you propose to twist that dagger by adding the 270-acre Devlin Technology Park adjacent to Chris Yung Elementary School and several residential communities.   How would YOU like to have a “park” like this next to your house or your kid’s school?   You don’t even know this proje...
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  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: January 24, 2023 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   During her recent State of the County address, Chair Wheeler touted the county’s adoption of a collective bargaining ordinance, allowing employees to negotiate over terms and conditions of their employment.   However, on the same day she claimed credit for expanding advocacy for county employees, she concurrently proposed to curtail the rights of self-expression for the rest of the county’s residents.   In a January 10 th memo, Chair Wheeler put forward several recommendations for limiting public comment at these meetings. Accompanying a January 12 th Inside NOVA article on the subject ( Changes upcoming for public comment at Prince William board meetings? | Headlines | insidenova.com ) were several uniformly negative online comments on these proposals, much like the ones Chair Wh...
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  Remarks to the Warrenton Town Council: January 10, 2023 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville in Prince William County.   I’m here tonight to offer you sympathy, support and a warning: Be careful which camel’s nose you allow under your tent.   I see a lot of similarities in what you are considering tonight and what has been riding roughshod over Prince William for more than a year.   I even see some of the same players now plying their trade here in Warrenton. Due to the gothic horror story imposed upon the citizens of Prince William, I’ve watched your plight with interest and a sense of foreboding.   Are we all doomed to the same fate of being sacrificed on the altar of big tech’s insatiable appetite for land, power and water?   Are we all to be sold down the river by public servants who courted our trust on election day only to betray it afterward?   Is trust and transparency in government an antiquated concept that has fallen vict...
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  Remarks at press conference prior to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors meeting of December 13, 2022 Tonight, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors will hold a public hearing and vote on the 2040 Comprehensive Plan and vision for the future of our county.  We know that public hearings are an annoying formality to this Board that has absolutely no interest in citizen input.  Shady deals cooked up long ago behind closed doors will be rubber stamped while disadvantaged county residents are left to spit into a wind of political indifference. Our current Board has a disconcerting practice of taking developer aspirations and passing them off as the county’s vision.   Developers have been eagerly awaiting such a compliant Board, and their Christmas lists have been duly delivered to Santa Wheeler.   She and her four obedient elves have been in the workshop folding that tainted input into the travesty you’ll see peddled tonight. It would be r...
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  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: November 1, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   In case you missed it, I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   So here we are.   After a year of presenting arguments and evidence, we are still awaiting your enlightenment.   I’m skeptical, but willing to be surprised.   There is still time to avoid a disastrous decision with irreversible consequences that will forever stain your legacy. There’s no point at this late hour of recounting the multitude of reasons why the Prince William Digital Gateway is a lousy idea.   You’ve read it in the media, in the opposition of dozens of non-partisan conservation groups, and heard it from numerous speakers in these chambers.   And the support for this lemon remains stalled at a few of you, and corporations and landowners who stand to profit from the deal.   That’s some consensus you’ve built. I have marveled at...
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