Board of County Supervisors Meeting - Work Session - Jun 09, 2026

meeting

Prince William County Board of Supervisors 3h 51m 1 speaker 5 agenda items transcribed 2 months ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

How does public comment open and what are the initial procedural items?

Chair/Presiding Officer (Chair Jefferson) 18:17

It is 2 0 2 and I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, June 9th. Let us begin with a moment of silence.

Chair/Presiding Officer (Chair Jefferson) 18:37

Thank you everyone. All rise if you are able for the pledge of allegiance. to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indomitable, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you, everyone. So we are going to move on to agenda item number three, and that's public comment time. We do not have anyone. I believe we also do not have anyone online. Maybe? Okay. All right.

Rick Canizales 19:16

Chris, do we have anyone online?

Chair/Presiding Officer (Chair Jefferson) 19:23

Good evening. I'm sorry. Yes, we do. They're logging in right now. Okay. All right, because the sheet we got last night said no one. All right. Okay, just let me know when they're ready to come on, and we'll call for the first speaker.

Julia Manno (Julia Manno / Director, Office of Sustainability) 19:48

I apologize.

Chair/Presiding Officer (Chair Jefferson) 19:53

While we're waiting, we have a resolution. We need to waive the rules to do a resolution to allow for remote participation today. Can I get a motion? So moved, Madam Chair. Second. All right, so we probably moved and seconded. Can we take a vote? All right, one second.

Paige Gibbons Backus 20:31

Vote unanimous, Supervisor Gordy absent from vote.

Chair/Presiding Officer (Chair Jefferson) 20:41

All right, and I believe we're still waiting for someone to log in. Okay, Supervisor Ingram. Okay, Chris, back to our online speakers. Are we ready? Yes, sir, we are ready. Our first online speaker is Christopher Grove. All right, go ahead, Christopher.

Christopher Grove 20:58

Hi there board. Thank you. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm not in a spot where I can actually put my video on, but I appreciate you letting me speak today. First of all, I'd like to congratulate the Brentsville District High School varsity boys soccer on their regional championship win on last Thursday. And I'll make this quick. So hopefully Supervisor Vega can get out there tonight and watch her son help score some goals for the team. So thank you.

Chair/Presiding Officer (Chair Jefferson) 21:27

Real quick, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things.

Christopher Grove 21:33

I know the data center questions and approvals are going to be coming up here perpetually for the next few months, few years. And in our

Chair/Presiding Officer (Chair Jefferson) 21:50

to engage more with even, you know, you all as a local leaders, but even on the state scale, we were down for lobbying day back in, I think it was February down in Richmond.

Christopher Grove 22:04

And one thing that I kept running into with a lot of the state delegates and state senators was just kind of misinformation on the, what we're talking about when we're talking about data centers these days. So I was just hoping I could put together a little something to explain to everybody. I actually had the fortune of playing Ultimate Frisbee this morning next to a noisy Loudoun County data center. So, you know, it just kind of hit home that that is still happening. an ever present threat to our community. So I just wanted to put some perspective behind things. So what are we talking about when we're considering today's data centers and especially the ones that are coming up and being proposed and being fought for and fought against in Prince William County, it's really about hyperscale data centers.

Christopher Grove 23:01

And what does that mean? So it's all about scale. A lot of the arguments that we hear is like, oh, but you use your phone. You store your pictures in the cloud. Yeah, that's fine, but that was 15 years ago. That was 10 years ago or more. It's not about storage now. It's about compute. Storage is very passive compared to compute. Storage takes very little power comparatively to keep data stored on a disk. It is compute that takes enormous amounts of energy to process information, and AI is just compounding that. A byproduct of that energy consumption is heat, which takes even more energy to dissipate and cool and keep chips running 24-7. That cooling also requires a lot of air handling and a lot of water.

Chair/Presiding Officer (Chair Jefferson) 23:50

Whether it's closed loop, open loop, evaporative, there is a lot of water use.

Christopher Grove 23:56

Even in closed loop, that water still has to be cleaned and sanitized and potentially replaced from time to time. So what is being developed now is not your traditional data center. It's not colo. It's not colocation.