Keep This County a Sanctuary

The Appalachian Mountains are in my blood. I grew up outside of Appalachia, but my parents brought me back to these mountains again and again throughout my childhood, and I was raised on their stories of playing in the hollers of West Virginia. When my husband and I bought our first home here as young millennials, we did it for our children — we wanted them to grow up with these mountains the way I wished I had. We would bring the kids to visit the house while it was still under construction, standing together in the framed rooms, imagining their childhood unfolding against the backdrop of these ridgelines.

We chose this county on purpose. We chose a place where our kids wake to birdsong, fall asleep to crickets, and run outside to hear the frogs singing after it rains. That peace is exactly what’s at stake as our Board of Supervisors considers allowing data centers here.

We only need to look north to see the cost of industrialization steadily swallowing our neighbors in Northern Virginia. Residents there live with the constant industrial hum of cooling fans running 24 hours a day, seven days a week — noise that research links to disrupted sleep, elevated stress, and cardiovascular harm. For children, the science is even more sobering: chronic noise exposure is associated with poorer concentration, decreased learning, and lower reading comprehension. Virginia’s data centers are permitted to operate more than 10,000 diesel backup generators, which emit fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides linked to childhood asthma, respiratory illness, and heart disease. A single mid-sized facility can consume as much water as three hospitals. Longtime residents who moved to those counties for the same reasons we moved here now describe their once-quiet communities as an industrial wasteland. Once green space is converted to industrial use, it does not come back — and neither does the peace.

I’ll admit something: before moving here, I never paid attention to local issues. I didn’t even vote regularly. It was my love of this town and this community that changed me — that inspired me to show up, speak out, and fight for this place. As a mom of four, I am asking our supervisors to fight for it, too. Other counties are our cautionary tale; we do not have to repeat their mistakes.

No amount of tax revenue is worth trading our children’s health, their future, and the peace and natural beauty that make this beautiful county home.

Vote no. Protect what we have. Keep this county a sanctuary.

Kelsey Lawrence
Fork District
Warren County, VA

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