Community Members Come Together With Goals To Affect Data Center Development

The West Virginia Data Center Accountability Project (WVDCAP) is a response to what organizers call “the rushed attempt” to build data centers across West Virginia.   

Morgan King, West Virginia Citizen Action Group Climate and Energy Manager, said a year of strategizing and coordinating made it clear what disparate communities needed.   

“There needed to be a more coordinated and organized network among all of these sites to support residents with resources, with advice, so that each different location facing a data center realized they weren’t alone,” she said.   

The group opposes the unchecked buildout of data centers and are seeking four key points:  

• Let the People Decide: Local Control and Community Consent 

• Clean Air & Clean Water for the People – Not for Data Centers 

• West Virginia is Not for Sale 

• Community Over Computers 

King said the group is still developing a thorough position and policies on all of the sub issues, as well as how the group wants to handle House Bill 2014 going into the 2027 West Virginia Legislative session. Passed in 2025, the law allows data centers to establish self-contained power plants, called microgrids, and prevents any local control like municipal zoning or noise ordinances.    

“We want to send a unified message across the state, which I think we’re doing with the launch of this data center accountability project to show that these communities aren’t standing alone,” King said. “That one community facing a data center that’s not consented to by the locals is a threat not just to that community but to the rest of the state, and that West Virginians stand united together against these unjust developments.” 

WVDCAP counts among its affiliates groups including Putnam United, Tucker United, the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.  

“I think we’re at a precipice in West Virginia where, in particular, data centers is this issue that crosses the aisle,” King said. “It’s not left versus right. It’s very much the public, the working class versus billionaires and big tech. And we’re seeing that come out in West Virginia, a place that has become pretty polarized politically in the past decade or two.” 

The group has organized a statewide solidarity rally at the state Capitol this coming Monday, Sept. 14 at 11 a.m. on the South Side steps, during legislative interims. Residents from across the state will be speaking at the rally. Organizers like King hope to have a chance to speak with their elected officials and share their perspective on data centers.