Data Centers & Loudon County: Right-Sized, Not Hyperscale

What's Happening Right Now

On June 30, 2026, the Loudon County Commission approved a six-month moratorium on data center approvals — halting county permits, zoning approvals, building approvals, utility extensions, and development agreements for proposed data centers. Residents who spoke at the public hearing raised concerns about constant noise, water and power consumption, impacts on livestock and property, and what a hyperscale facility would do to their utility bills.

That pause was the right call. It gives the county time to answer the real questions: Where — if anywhere — does a large data center make sense here? What standards must it meet? And who pays for the power, water, and infrastructure it demands?

The pressure isn't going away. The Tennessee Valley Authority told investors that data centers made up about 18% of its industrial load in 2025 and that demand is projected to double by 2030. In the Tennessee Valley, data center electricity consumption has grown 7.2 times in five years — enough to power more than 661,000 homes.

18%

of TVA's industrial load was data centers in 2025 — projected to double by 2030

7.2×

growth in Tennessee Valley data center electricity use in just five years

661,000

homes — what today's Valley data center demand could otherwise power

6 mo.

moratorium on data center approvals passed by Loudon County Commission, June 30, 2026

Data Centers: The Honest Pros & Cons

This isn't fear-mongering, and it isn't cheerleading. I've spent 20 years in broadband and IT — including at LCUB. Here's both sides of the ledger.

✓ The Pros — What Data Centers Can Offer

Grows the Tax Base

A data center pays property taxes that help fund our schools, roads, and services — while placing few new demands on them. Compared to a large residential development, that can ease the pressure on classrooms and traffic that comes with rapid growth.

Infrastructure Upgrades

Data center projects can bring fiber routes, substation upgrades, and road improvements that benefit the wider community — if the agreements are written right.

Essential Digital Backbone

Everything from 911 dispatch to online banking to telehealth runs through data centers. Modern life needs them — the question is scale, location, and terms.

*Construction jobs are sometimes counted as a benefit, but they're limited — a temporary build-out phase of one to three years, often filled by outside contractors — so they're not listed here as a lasting one.

✗ The Cons — What Hyperscale Costs a Community

Massive Power Draw

A single hyperscale AI campus can demand as much electricity as tens of thousands of homes. That load strains the grid and — without the right rate structure — pushes costs onto every other ratepayer.

Water Consumption

Large AI data centers can require millions of gallons of water per day for cooling. Our rivers, wells, and treatment capacity were built for our residents, not for server farms.

Constant Noise

Cooling fans and equipment produce a persistent low-frequency hum, 24/7 — plus regular diesel generator testing. Residents near existing facilities report impacts on quality of life and even livestock.

Few Permanent Jobs

After construction ends, a hyperscale facility typically employs only a modest permanent staff. The long-term jobs-per-acre and jobs-per-megawatt numbers are among the lowest of any industrial use.

Tax Breaks That Don't Pay Off

Studies of state data center incentives find governments lose 52 to 91 cents of every dollar in tax breaks given — mostly through sales-tax exemptions on equipment. Abatements can hollow out the very tax benefit that justified the project.

Property Values & Rural Character

Hyperscale campuses consume hundreds of acres. Peer-reviewed analysis of one proposed site projected over $100 million in lost residential property value within 1.25 miles. That's not the controlled growth we need.

Who Pays the Power Bill? Protecting Ratepayers

The single biggest issue: when a giant new customer shows up, who pays for the new generation, transmission lines, and substations it requires? Tennessee and TVA are moving — and Loudon County should hold them to it.

What TVA and Tennessee Are Doing

TVA proposed a new rate class for data centers (May 2026) — removing them from the general industrial classification so that data centers, not families, cover the power costs their operations create.
Pay before you plug in — TVA's proposal could require data centers to pay upfront costs before they even connect to the grid, so stranded infrastructure doesn't land on ratepayers if a project folds.
House Bill 1847, signed May 7, 2026 — Tennessee law now prohibits utilities from using ratepayer funds to pay for costs solely associated with data centers. It took effect immediately.
TVA has publicly pledged "rate fairness" as AI-driven demand surges across the Valley — a commitment we should hold them to in writing on any project.

Why We Still Have to Be Vigilant

TVA is a federal utility serving 10 million people — the State of Tennessee has limited authority over it, so state law alone can't fully protect Loudon County ratepayers.
Amid rapid data center growth, households have seen the largest electricity cost increases — the burden has been falling on families, not on the facilities driving the demand.
Rate classes and legislation are proposals and paper until they're enforced. Local agreements are our leverage — the county controls zoning, permits, and development agreements.

My position is simple: no Loudon County family should pay one extra penny on their power bill to subsidize a hyperscale data center. Any project that can't survive while paying the full cost of its own power, water, and infrastructure is a project that shouldn't be built here.

This Isn't Just Loudon County

Erin Brockovich — the consumer advocate who became a household name holding a giant utility accountable for its water contamination — launched a national data center tracking map in April 2026. What communities across the country are reporting should sound familiar.

5,000+

community reports on her national data center map within two months of launch

#1

most-reported concern nationwide: lack of transparency — ahead of water, noise, and power

8%

estimated rise in average U.S. residential power bills by 2030 from data center demand (Carnegie Mellon study)

2 of 3

data center projects reviewed by the Army Corps since 2024 that avoided full permitting with public comment

What the National Record Shows

Communities find out too late. The single most common complaint on the national map isn't noise or water — it's secrecy: non-disclosure agreements, code-named projects, and residents learning the details after the deal is signed. That's exactly why transparency is a pillar of my platform.
Most projects skip public review — legally. A POLITICO analysis of Army Corps records found that of 95 data center projects reviewed since January 2024, only 26 went through full individual permitting with a public comment period. The rest either needed no federal permit or used streamlined approvals issued without public notice.
When rules get bent, enforcement shows up late. Right here in Tennessee, a hyperscale AI facility in the Memphis area ran 59 gas turbines without the required air permits — nearly double the number publicly acknowledged — and the matter is now in federal court. Whatever you think of the company, the lesson is the same: the rules have to apply to everyone, and they have to be enforced before the switches get flipped, not after.
She's not anti-business — and neither am I. Brockovich readily acknowledges the upside: one Texas town stands to collect roughly $100 million a year in tax revenue. The question is never "data centers: good or bad?" It's whether a specific project, on a specific site, under specific terms, is a good deal for the people already living there.

The takeaway for Loudon County: federal and state oversight is thin and getting thinner, and communities that waited for someone else to protect them got surprised. Local zoning, local permits, and local development agreements are the tools that actually work — which is exactly what our six-month moratorium gives us time to get right.

What "Doing It Right" Looks Like

I'm not against data centers — and here's proof it can be done responsibly. The Switch Pyramid Campus near Grand Rapids, Michigan shows what a best-in-class project requires.

100% Renewable Power

Switch's Pyramid Campus runs on 100% renewable energy through a dedicated agreement with Consumers Energy, and operates at net-zero carbon emissions — negotiated before it was built, not promised after.

Adaptive Reuse, Not Farmland

Instead of bulldozing hundreds of rural acres, Switch converted the iconic former Steelcase Pyramid office building — an existing industrial site with existing infrastructure.

Planned With the Utility

The campus was designed hand-in-hand with the power company — up to 320 MW of capacity planned deliberately, so the grid and other customers weren't blindsided.

Notice what made that project work: the right site, the right utility partnership, and sustainability commitments locked in up front. Now ask the honest question — does a rural district in Loudon County, with residential wells, family farms, and a grid already under pressure, offer any of those conditions? It doesn't. That's not anti-technology. That's siting discipline.

We Already Have Data Center Capacity — At LCUB

Here's the part of this debate almost nobody mentions: Loudon County already has a data center — and it's the right kind.

The LCUB Data Center

Publicly owned, locally accountable — operated by the Lenoir City Utilities Board, a public power utility, not a private-equity landlord answering to Wall Street.
Built for local needs — enterprise-grade colocation for organizations that require 100% uptime with regional accountability. Who's inside stays confidential — and that privacy is part of the security.
Right-sized extra capacity — it serves our community's needs and provides room to grow, without demanding new power plants or millions of gallons of water a day.
Strategically located — off I-75 at Exit 81, an hour from McGhee Tyson Airport, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and downtown Knoxville, powered through diverse substations and TVA with no single point of failure.

I helped lead broadband expansion at LCUB, so I've seen this model work firsthand: infrastructure scaled to the community it serves. When an organization in our region needs secure, reliable data capacity — we already have it, minutes away, owned by the public. Loudon County doesn't need to sacrifice a rural community to get "data center benefits." We already banked them.

	LCUB Data Center (what we have)	Hyperscale AI Campus (what's being pitched)
Who it serves	Our own community's needs, close to home	A national or global tech company's compute demand
Ownership	Public power utility — locally accountable	Private or private-equity — accountable to shareholders
Power demand	Modest — fits existing grid capacity	Can rival a small city; may require new generation and transmission
Water use	Minimal — closed loop	Potentially millions of gallons per day for cooling
Land footprint	Existing developed site off I-75	Hundreds of rural acres
Risk to your power bill	None — it's part of your utility	Real — unless ironclad rate and cost agreements come first

Where I Stand

My Commitments on Data Centers

Support the moratorium — use the six months to write real standards: siting, noise limits, water usage caps, screening, stormwater, and decommissioning bonds.
Ratepayers first — no project moves forward unless TVA's data center rate class and HB 1847 protections are locked into the development agreement. Data centers pay their own power costs, up front.
Right-sized over hyperscale — leverage and grow what we already own at LCUB before handing hundreds of rural acres to a hyperscale campus that doesn't fit District 2.
No corporate welfare — no tax abatements that studies show lose 52–91 cents on the dollar. If a project only pencils out with giveaways, it doesn't pencil out.
Protect rural character — controlled growth means saying yes to development that fits and no to development that doesn't. That's the platform I'm running on.

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DATA CENTERS & LOUDON COUNTY

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