Altamaha Riverkeeper

Fletcher Sams, head of the Altamaha Riverkeeper organization, told city council members the financial windfall would come with environmental consequences, most stemming from Georgia Power’s coal-fired Plant Scherer, about 20 miles away from the data center site.

“You will continue to see fish consumption advisories for mercury in fish tissue for all surrounding water bodies, including Lake Juliette, Lake Tobesofkee, High Falls Lake and the Ocmulgee River,” Sams said, because of emissions from Plant Scherer.

An executive order by President Donald Trump recently exempted Plant Scherer and similar plants from a more stringent Biden-era mercury pollution rule. Georgia Power had been slated to close Plant Scherer before the data center boom. Now it and its sister facility, Plant Bowen in North Georgia, will continue to operate for the foreseeable future.

Sams also warned about new fine particulate pollution, the kind that makes old-fashioned smog — which, in turn, leads to respiratory illness — from the fleet of diesel-powered backup electrical generation currently proposed for the data center.

"Those generators are about the size of what y'all are sitting behind right there," Sams told the council, gesturing to their dais. "About an 18-wheeler size. A thousand of those."

Those generators would be run at least monthly just to ensure they would work should an emergency come.

With the promise of quintupled tax revenue, the City of Forsyth approves data center zoning Over the objections of many residents and the recommendation of its own planning and zoning board, city leaders in Forsyth approved a rezoning of a swath of timberland for a hyperscale data center.

Join us tomorrow at 7PM with our friends at the Patagonia Atlanta Beltline location for a special screening of "Saving Juliette", a short investigative documentary from filmmakers Evey Wilson Wetherbee and Grant Blankenship. The film tells the story of the residents of Juliette Georgia’s struggle to find answers when they find that their drinking water is contaminated with coal ash from the largest coal-fired power plant in the country.

We'll have a short meet and greet before the film for guests to enjoy some Glide pizza and refreshments. Stick around after the screening for a Q&A with the film makers.

Patagonia Atlanta Beltline - Outdoor Clothing Store, Atlanta, GA Visit Patagonia Atlanta Beltline—located at 124 Krog St NE—for the latest outdoor gear. View store hours, directions and connect to our Instagram here.

Sams, the executive director of Altamaha Riverkeeper, says he is particularly concerned about the potential strain on Middle Georgia’s water resources, which he said are already facing a deficit in coming years because of rising demand in the Altamaha River basin, including from data centers.

“They’re going to be sucking 17.2 million gallons a day upstream a day to provide power,” Sams says of the Pine Ridge Technology Park’s water footprint — due to the massive amount of water needed to produce power at coal-fired Plant Scherer, just north of Macon, about 40 miles northwest of the Twiggs County site.

Plant Scherer was originally slated for retirement in 2030, but utility Georgia Power now plans to continue operating the plant due to rising power demand, largely driven by data centers, according to reporting by the Energy & Policy Institute think tank.

At full capacity, Plant Scherer is one of the most polluting power plants in the nation in terms of climate-heating carbon dioxide and particulate matter harmful to human health, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Developers Push Huge Server Farm in Another Rural Georgia County Residents call for more transparency around “hyperscale” data center announced last month for Twiggs County.