With no data center bid in hand, Columbus County votes on keeping them out
Columbus County hears a data center moratorium on Oct. 5 with no application in hand, in a state where 53 communities have already paused. The hearing is where federal water and power math meets the industry's jobs ledger.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
A pause for a proposal nobody made
Columbus County's commissioners voted unanimously on 21 September to hold a 5 October public hearing on a data center moratorium. County Attorney Amanda Prince told the board the county has no rules addressing data centers and no application for one; staff simply suspects a developer will come. "There are many counties in the state that have begun moratoriums," she said. Commissioner Lavern Coleman wants 120 days, not the 90 on the agenda. 12
Fifty-three pauses and counting
Power Brief analyst Frank Muraca counts 53 North Carolina communities that have already paused data centers; Columbus would be the 54th, and the count stood above 20 only in mid-August. 23 Whiteville, the county seat, froze new data centers and crypto mines for 12 months on 25 August, with no active proposals in hand. 4 Durham County went 4-1 for nine months the night before, Newport paused for a year this month, and Beaufort County votes in October. 56 A late-July Elon Poll found 53% of state residents opposed, up from 44% in March. 3
The burden of proof flipped
What changed is the timing: counties used to pause when a developer applied. Now they pause on suspicion. In Hamlet, in Richmond County, Amazon's $10 billion campus was negotiated in secret as Project Blue Marlin, carrying 50% property tax breaks on the buildings and roughly 592 backup diesel generators against 500 promised jobs at full buildout. Richmond County ranks last in North Carolina on physical-environment measures. 7
The federal numbers behind the local fear
Data centers drew 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023, double their 1.8% share in 2014, and federal scenarios for 2028 run from 6.7% to 12%. 1011 Cooling water ran 64 billion liters in 2023 and could double or quadruple by 2028. 9
Data centers doubled their share of U.S. electricity, and 2028 scenarios reach 12%
- Data center share of U.S. electricity
- Estimate
Data
| Data center share of U.S. electricity | |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 1.8% |
| 2023 | 4.4% |
| 2028 (estimate) | 6.7% (6.7–12.0%) |
The industry's counter: jobs and tax money
The counter-math: a Data Center Coalition-commissioned study counts 159,710 North Carolina jobs supported in 2024 and $6 billion in state economic value. 2 In Loudoun County, Virginia, data centers paid about $1.2 billion in property tax in fiscal 2026, some 39% of the county budget. 8 The selling has not landed here: a $367,272 pro-industry ad campaign preceded a poll that moved toward opposition. 3 "We just want a little piece of the pie," the sole opponent of Whiteville's pause told its council. 4
Ninety days, one hundred twenty, or nothing
Nothing is decided until after the hearing, and Prince told commissioners the pause can only start once residents have spoken. 1 Durham's freeze expires in May 2027, Beaufort County votes next month, and Loudoun's board paused new applications this month. 568 The industry used to ask counties for permits. This fall, counties are asking the industry to prove itself first.
How this brief was made
01Gathered & sourced402 channels · 1,476 articles▾
Agents swept 402 channels and ingested 1,476 articles, then de-duplicated and ranked them for signal.
02Verified & cross-validated11 claims · 26 data feeds▾
Every one of 11 load-bearing claims was checked against primary sources, with 26 live data feeds reconciling the figures and charts.
- 1The News Reporter (Whiteville, N.C.), Commissioners set Oct. 5 hearing on possible data center pause, 22 September 2026
- 2Border Belt Independent, Columbus County Considers a Moratorium on Data Centers, 23 September 2026
- 3NC Newsline via Yahoo News, More than 20 North Carolina communities hit pause as data center backlash grows, 16 August 2026
- 4WECT via MSN, Whiteville approves 12-month moratorium on new data centers, crypto mining, 26 August 2026
- 5WRAL, Durham County adopts 9-month pause on data centers, 25 August 2026
- 6WITN, Residents voice support for Newport's moratorium approval on data center, 16 September 2026
- 7Inside Climate News, Inside the Secretive Deal for a $10 Billion Data Center in Rural North Carolina, 4 August 2026
- 8NPR via WWNO, The data center backlash is reshaping American politics, one community at a time, 21 September 2026
- 9The Conversation via MSN, Data centers consume massive amounts of water, companies rarely tell the public exactly how much, 7 September 2026
- 10Abacus, Data Center Energy Trends From DOE Reports, 17 September 2026
- 11Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, United States Data Center Energy Usage Report (LBNL-1005775), June 2016
03Reviewed & edited1 human editor▾
One editor read the draft against the evidence, tuned the framing, and signed off before it shipped.
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