Data Center Water Connections
At a glance
Based on auto-generated captions; names and details may be misheard.
- What: residents and advocacy groups are asking the city to deny water utility extension agreements to new data centers in Durham County, starting with a proposed facility called "Project Lloyd", and to stop accepting data center applications filed as light industrial.
- Where it stands: raised in public comment on 2026-10-08; the council did not respond or take action.
- Next: none scheduled in this record.
Public comment
- Speakers described Project Lloyd as roughly 88,000 square feet and 50 megawatts with a substation and 20 natural gas generators (another speaker called it a 72,000 square foot expansion). Figures are the speakers'.
- Reasons given: drought conditions, a 12 percent water rate increase tied to emergency supply and PFAS treatment, power demand driving new fossil plants, and a county moratorium that exempts data centers up to 100,000 square feet.
- Requests: deny city water connections; keep data centers from being classed as light industrial; work with residents and experts on long-term protections without loopholes.
Sources
- 2026-10-08 - City Council Work Session (council work session video, auto-captions)
Discussion time
About 11 minutes across 1 meeting (from transcript timestamps; approximate).
| Meeting | Minutes |
|---|---|
| 2026-10-08 - City Council Work Session | 11 |
Log
- 2026-10-08 - City Council Work Session - Four public speakers asked the council to deny water connections to new data centers; no council response.
- 2026-10-22 - City Council Work Session - Leslie Saint Drai urged denying water extensions to "Project Lloyd" and other data centers and a very low size threshold for county data centers; no council response (from auto-captions).