BOTETOURT CO., Va. – Residents and local leaders in Botetourt County are once again raising questions about transparency and public involvement as the community navigates major development projects, including a proposed Google data center and the Rocky Forge Wind Project.
Austen Schwend, who ran last year for the House of Delegates seat held by Terry Austin, said the county often meets only the minimum legal requirements for public notification, leaving residents unaware of major projects until key decisions have already been made.
“They do enough to be public as they’re legally required to, but they never actually come out and say, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about putting a data center here. Do you want that?’ That never happens,” Schwend said.
The Rocky Forge Wind Project, approved in 2016, is bringing 13 turbines to North Mountain, making it Virginia’s first utility-scale wind farm built on land. Google has agreed to purchase the output from the project to offset energy use for its proposed Botetourt County data center.
Schwend said many residents did not understand the connection between the wind farm and the data center until after key announcements were made.
“They actually waited until the day after the election in our primary to make the announcement that the data center was coming, which seems like, to me, collusion between current politicians and our local government. And, frankly, it is an admission that they knew it was not going to be popular,” he said.
Schwend described the visual and economic impact of the wind turbines.
“Most people don’t even know they’re coming. There’s some construction going on in the mountains, and people don’t have an idea there’s going to be 13 turbines that, if you look at the elevation difference between the height of the mountain versus the valley, it’ll be about one third of that height,” he said. “Most people don’t know it’s going to be visible as you pass through Rainbow Gap coming from Clifton Forge. It’s going to be a big, big stain on the mountains.”
He also criticized the lack of transparency around infrastructure and spending tied to both the wind farm and the data center.
“A lot of the things that get done in our locality, they get done without the people knowing about them… we can’t even track it and that’s getting down to part of the trust that we no longer have in government,” Schwend said. “There’s all these things that are happening behind the background, and it makes people really, really not trust what’s going on, frankly.”
Botetourt County officials did not return any 10 News requests for comment.
Schwend questioned the economic benefit of the projects, noting potential risks if the data center becomes obsolete or if profits flow outside the community.
“Basically, we’re supposed to make public the investment, i.e., take your taxes to an investment in this infrastructure, but then it privatizes all the profits,” he said.
He further noted the county’s handling of public relations and communications.
“Google came in and gave them money, and they immediately turned around and parked those ambulances in front of a board of supervisors meeting and said, ‘look at these ambulances that Google paid for,’ which to me is stabbing the taxpayers in the back,” Schwend said.
He also pointed to potential environmental concerns.
“Communications department of the county is trying to tell people that the water issue is not a big deal… if the county is serious about protecting water, we’d be having really important conversations about how can we test the water all around to make sure nobody’s impacted by this particular thing,” he said.
Schwend said the cumulative effect of these actions has eroded public trust, and many feel the county has taken advantage of them.
“The same wind that made it possible for them to fly these kites is the same wind that… basically people want to take our mountains from us to harness that wind for somebody else’s profit,“ he said.