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Blog for Citizen Journalists.Some interesting background on the Spero project (data center) in Spartanburg:
BACK UP DOCUMENTATION - Concerned Citizen Data Centers
My name is Martha Foster, I live in District 3. "We’re in an 'arms race with China.'" Growth of Data Centers is on “hyper scale” steroids! In late 2025, the US had 5,427 of them, China around 1,818. The U.S. dominates the global data market, with nearly half the Data Centers worldwide. SC already has 33 Data Centers. Spartanburg County Council has already approved 2 hyper scale data centers, the third had its second reading for a Fee in Lieu of Tax (FILOT) agreement, which gives the company a more than 50% tax break for 40 years, on President's Day, January 16th. How many more of these deals are incubating behind closed doors? So far we have NorthMark Strategies; a 2.8 billion project with FILOTs. Tiger DC; a 3 billion project with FILOTs. “Greenidge;” @300 Jones Road, also received FILOTs in 2022. SPARTANBURG COUNTY IS THE FASTEST GROWING COUNTY IN THE STATE. SC IS THE FASTEST GROWING STATE IN THE COUNTRY. Why are we giving FILOTs when we are in the highest demand area of the country? IT MAKES NO SENSE! Spartanburg County has approximately 146,015 households. An average household uses about 10,000 kWh or 10MWs annually. These 3 centers, when at expected capacity, will be using a combined 736,000 MW. What will that huge increase of power do to our area in regards to EMF/ EMR in our environment? Living under high voltage power lines causes problems. How much worse will these be? A healthy human/animal cell resonates between 10 and 30 khz. Cell phones - emit 50 to 100,000 khz 5G - emits 1 to 950,000 GHz. Data Centers will emit within the infrastructure 6.5GHz and above depending on the wireless usage. A microwave oven emits 5.45 GHz... so we are being microwaved 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Symptoms of EMF/EMR are: Google and Chat GPT say “no imminent harm.” well we know what that means by now…….just another lie. AI says what it’s programmed to say. I personally have had it change its answers 3 times. What consequences does council have in place if monitoring/regulations are exceeded? Any ordinances and requirements? What long term studies are available for review of these problems? What assurances do “we the people” have that each any of these areas are being addressed before you increase our risks? Can the county really justify bringing in these new centers that are loud, give off dangerous environmental EMF/EMR, expend huge amounts of energy, use millions of gallons of water from the water supply without reasonable structure, ordinances or codes? We need a moratorium! Concerning NorthMark… David was quoted as saying it is “not a data center” “Britt specified the project is not a data center and would also be an energy-self-sufficient facility.” That was deception. Then we find NorthMark will tap into the natural gas line. Is that “self sufficiency?” Or is that draining a local resource? I guess it depends. According to Tiger DC’s press release: Spartanburg County's vision is among other things to “…promote integrity, honesty, and teamwork …and encourage open communication." The OneSpartanburg, Inc., falls under the Vision Plan. This includes a host of projects centered in Downtown Spartanburg, where the City of Spartanburg and OneSpartanburg, Inc. work in unison to attract companies that support high-paying jobs, expand downtown restaurant and retail options, and build a nationally-renowned city center. How do these hyper-scale Data Centers fit in to OneSpartanburg’s “Vision?” It's Just A Penny
The new tax proposed by the County Council is being called a penny tax. It's not a penny. It is a 1% sales tax added to the 6% sales tax already enforced by the state. So, let's talk about how much it is projected to raise; an estimated $486,000,000 over a six year period. At the average cost of $332,000 per mile to re-pave a road, the county could pay for 1464 miles with this sum. The county has about 1730 miles of roads. Thus, they could completely re-pave about 85% of our roads. The county only wants to spend $300,000,000 of the amount raised on road paving. Once again, at $332,000 per mile, that would be 903 miles of roads. Of course, if you factor in 4 lane roads the amount would have to be adjusted. Now let's talk about the Paving Plan. The first two projects to be repaved are State routes 29 and 290. Yes, you read that right; STATE routes 29 and 290. Did you know we already pay an extra 12 cents per gallon through fuel tax on top of the original 17 cents per gallon for the maintenance of our STATE roads? Some might be inclined to ask "how often am I getting taxed to not fix the same road?" Let's get back to the Plan. The State of South Carolina is less than 25% on schedule to pave our state roads. Read that another way and there is a delay in 75% of our paving projects. If you want an example of this take Route 357, scheduled to be completed the third quarter of 2022, but now postponed to the 3rd quarter of 2023. In other words, it's in the works but still not started. Promise big then under-deliver. They blame being late on a lack of material and crews. I would like to know how the county will suddenly find material and crews to man an additional 903 miles of roadwork. What happens to the money if it sits around waiting to be put to its promised use? Let's talk about that. They are currently sitting on an excess of at least $25,000,000. They could also use up to $10,000,000 dollars in Covid relief money. How much of the current 1% tax which is set to expire in April is left over from the capitol project? Remember the $30,000,000 bond for "roads" passed in 2022? What ever came of that? How about the $25.00 per license plate fee that lasted 15 years and raised about $105,000,000? Those numbers total $170,000,000 in funds that could pave 512 miles of roads! Does the quality of our roads reflect that amount of money? Do your research. One thing is certain, our county council has proven irresponsible when it comes to fixing our roads. Don't give them a "penny" until the plan makes fiscal sense! Lou Nespeca - Spartanburg Resident Restrictions on use of COVID-19 Relief Funds through the CARES Act:
Recognizing these imperatives, the SLFRF program provides vital resources for state, local, and Tribal governments to respond to the pandemic and its economic effects and to replace revenue lost due to the public health emergency, preventing cuts to government services. Specifically, the ARPA provides that SLFRF funds 11 may be used: (a) To respond to the public health emergency or its negative economic impacts, including assistance to households, small businesses, and nonprofits, or aid to impacted industries such as tourism, travel, and hospitality; (b) To respond to workers performing essential work during the COVID–19 public health emergency by providing premium pay to eligible workers; (c) For the provision of government services to the extent of the reduction in revenue due to the COVID–19 public health emergency relative to revenues collected in the most recent full fiscal year prior to the emergency; and (d) To make necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure. First, under the revenue loss eligible use category, recipients have broad latitude to use funds for government services up to their amount of revenue loss due to the pandemic. A potential use of funds that does not fit within the other three eligible use categories may be permissible as a government service, which recipients can fund up to their amount of revenue loss. For example, transportation infrastructure projects are generally ineligible as a response to the public health and negative economic impacts of the pandemic; however, a recipient could fund these projects as a government service up to its amount of revenue loss, provided that other restrictions on use do not apply. See sections Revenue Loss and Restrictions on Use for further information. • Revenue Loss: The final rule offers a standard allowance for revenue loss of up to $10 million, not to exceed a recipient’s SLFRF award amount, allowing recipients to select between a standard amount of revenue loss or complete a full revenue loss calculation. Recipients that select the standard allowance may use that amount for government services. www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-01-27/pdf/2022-00292.pdf ArchivesNo Archives |
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